Much like real keys, the key to discovery can be something small that opens doors to larger worlds and is easily swallowed by babies. Feed your kids that key with today’s Groupon: for $15, you get four family tickets (a $30 value) to The Children's Museum, Seattle, located inside the Seattle Center on Harrison Street.

Celebrating its 31st year, The Children’s Museum offers 22,000 square feet of hands-on educational exhibits and developmental programs designed to encourage curiosity in young, developing minds. Children can learn about different cultures in the Global Village exhibit, which features the rhythmic drumbeats of a Ghanaian village, a Filipino sari-sari market, and a ride on a runaway Japanese bullet train. The Neighborhood lets playful peanuts mimic in miniature adult activities in simulacra of grocery stores, construction zones, theaters, and restaurants before they test cause and effect in the Rube Goldbergian Cog City. The youngest visitors will appreciate Discovery Bay, an interactive water exhibit where toddlers can make friends with seaweed and engage in quixotic staring contests with fish. Budding prodigies, meanwhile, can develop their artistic skills in Imagination Studio by painting, working with clay, and sculpting masterpieces from recycled materials.

Every day, museum educators offer informal educational programs to help kids sharpen their minds, be they fresh out of the womb or pushing double digits. Themes change monthly at the museum. February’s heart focus examines the human body’s most Valentine-shaped organ and the caring folks who put their own hearts to best use. In March the museum highlights Ireland’s shamrocked culture, and in April it explores conservation and planet Earth, one of only three planets capable of supporting both humans and zebras. At The Children’s Museum, youngsters of all ages will find something that holds their attention longer than video games or authoritative conch shells.

Must redeem entire family pack in one visit.

Reviews

Frommer’s awarded The Children’s Museum, Seattle three stars, its highest rating. Thirty-two Yelpers give it an average of 3.5 stars.

• The museum includes plenty of hands-on cultural exhibits, a child-size neighborhood, a Discovery Bay for toddlers, a mountain wilderness area, a global village, and other special exhibits to keep the little ones busy learning and playing for hours. – Frommer’s
• There's tons of different activities, all of them hands-on, and usually a different traveling exhibit once/quarter. You've got a whole craft room, a ball room, some musical instruments, a reading room, a "grocery store", a "stage" and a "building area". – Joshua B., Yelp, 11/23/09