Miami Children’s Museum

Across the causeway from the Jungle Island, the Miami Children’s museum turns as many heads as the parrots, with its futuristic design by the stellar architecture firm Arquitectonica. Inside, it’s nothing like the familiar boring old museums at home, but rather a highly interactive kid’s playground. The fun includes a colorful mosaic-tiled, two-story sandcastle, a sea room designed especially for under-fives, the world’s most cultural teddy-bear exhibit and a television studio. But what kids seem to like best are the exhibits celebrating the mundane: the bank with teller stations and fake checks, the supermarket with checkout lanes and the police motorcycle and fire truck.