Imagine It! Chidren's Museum of Atlanta
Opened in 2003, Imagine It! is a 30,000-square-foot children's museum conveniently located across the street from Centennial Olympic Park, in an area undergoing some exciting urban renaissance. Based on Howard Gardiner's theory of multiple intelligences, Imagine It! features colorful hands-on exhibits and activities that allow children the opportunity to look, listen, touch, and explore in order to discover first-hand how things work. Fun is the priority in this high-energy environment (the learning just sneaks up). There are four major learning zones: Fundamentally Food, Let Your Creativity Flow, Tools for Solutions, and Leaping into Learning, the specialty zone for toddlers.The museum is recommended for children ages 2 to 8, but all are welcome. Due to high visitor volume, Imagine It! encourages visitors to purchase tickets online in advance to ensure entrance to the museum upon arrival. Make a day of it and visit Centennial Park across the street either before or after your museum visit.

Center for Puppetry Arts
Don't miss this place if you're traveling with the kids. In fact, you might not want to miss it even without kids in tow. The center is dedicated to expanding public awareness of puppetry as a fine art and to presenting all of its international and historic forms. Opened in 1978, with Kermit the Frog cutting the official ribbon (he had a little help from the late Jim Henson), it contains a 300-seat theater, a smaller theater, gallery space, and a permanent museum. The puppet shows are marvelous -- sophisticated, riveting, full-stage productions with elaborate scenery. Some are family oriented; others, with nighttime showings, are geared to adults. Call ahead to find out what's on; reservations are essential. You can also call a week or so in advance to enroll yourself or your kids in a puppet-making workshop.The center's permanent exhibit, "Puppets, The Power of Wonder," is stunning, featuring one of the largest and finest puppet collections in North America. The exhibit includes such treasures as ritualistic African figures, Punch and Judy, Henson's Pigs in Space, turn-of-the-century Thai shadow puppets, Indonesian wayang golek puppets used to tell classic stories (a centuries-old tradition), Chinese hand puppets, rod-operated marionettes from all over Europe, original Muppets, pre-Colombian clay puppets that were used in religious ceremonies circa A.D. 1200, and Turkish shadow figures made of dried animal skins. Visitors have the opportunity to use joysticks to manipulate over 350 of these puppets. A video hosted by Jim Henson provides an overview of puppetry and takes visitors around the world to meet masters of the art. Another gallery features visiting exhibits from all over the world. Reservations are required for guided tours of "Puppets, The Power of Wonder"; the tour lasts about an hour.The gift shop is like no other, with oodles of marionettes, one-of-a-kind handmade puppets, masks, videos, and other related items.

Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History
Previously the Kennesaw Civil War Museum, this museum is now operated in association with The Smithsonian Institute, which means that Civil War and transportation objects from the Smithsonian will be incorporated into the exhibits here.It was here that the wild adventure known as the "Great Locomotive Chase" began. The Civil War had been under way for a year on April 12, 1862, when Union spy James J. Andrews and a group of 21 Northern soldiers disguised as civilians boarded a locomotive called the General in Marietta, buying tickets for diverse destinations to avert suspicion. When the train made a breakfast stop at the Lacy Hotel in Big Shanty, they seized the locomotive and several boxcars and fled northward to Chattanooga. The goal of these daring raiders was to destroy tracks, telegraph wires, and bridges behind them, thus cutting off the Confederate supply route between Virginia and Mississippi.Conductor William A. Fuller, his breakfast interrupted by the sound of the General chugging out of the station, gave chase on foot, then grabbed a platform car and poled along the tracks. With him were a railroad superintendent and the General's engineer. At the Etowah River, Fuller and crew commandeered a small locomotive called the Yonah and made better progress. Meanwhile, the raiders tore up track behind them, and when the pursuers got close, the raiders slowed them down by throwing ties and firewood onto the tracks. Andrews, a very smooth talker, managed to convince station attendants en route that he was on an emergency mission running ammunition to Confederate General Beauregard in Mississippi.Fuller's chances of catching the General improved when he seized the southbound Texas and began running it backward toward the raiders, picking up reinforcements along the way and eventually managing to get a telegraph message through to Gen. Danville Leadbetter, commander at Chattanooga. The chase went on, with Andrews sending uncoupled boxcars careening back toward Fuller as obstructions. Fuller, who was running in reverse, merely attached the rolling boxcars to his engine and kept on. At the covered Oostanaula Bridge, the raiders detached a boxcar and set it on fire in hopes of finally creating an impassable obstacle -- a burning bridge behind them. But the Texas was able to push the flaming car off the bridge. It soon burned out, and Fuller tossed it off the track and continued.By this time the General was running low on fuel and water, the Texas was hot on its heels, and the raiders realized that all was lost. Andrews gave his final command: "Jump off and scatter! Every man for himself!" All were captured and imprisoned within a few days. Some escaped, others were exchanged for Confederate prisoners of war, and the rest were hanged in Atlanta, most of them at a site near Oakland Cemetery. Though the mission failed, the raiders, some of them posthumously, received the newly created Medal of Honor for their valor.The museum, occupying a building that was once the Frey cotton gin, houses the General (still in running condition, but don't get any ideas); a walk-through caboose; exhibits of Civil War artifacts, memorabilia, and photographs (including those relating to the chase and its participants); and exhibits on railroads. You can view a 20-minute narrated video about the chase, but if you really want the full story, rent the Disney movie The Great Locomotive Chase, starring Fess Parker as the dashing Andrews. (You can also buy a copy in the museum gift shop.)The museum is 3 miles from Kennesaw Mountain/National Battlefield Park, so consider visiting both of these Civil War-related sights the same day.

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