Touch-It Room

A destination for families, a classroom for traditional students and home-schoolers, a show-and-tell area for grandparents, a departure point for journeys of the imagination: Winterthur's Touch-It Room provides all these and more to thousands of visitors each year.

Located on the first floor of the museum near the Reception Area, the Touch-It Room provides an accessible and engaging resource for people with different learning styles, interests, and skills. The large, low-ceilinged room holds a parlor and a general store area as well as hands-on displays and activities about lighting, kitchenware, and crafts. The tea set, puzzles, dress-up clothes, and basket of wooden toys provide a playful way to learn about early American life.

The original Touch-It Room at Winterthur was developed in 1960 exclusively for use by schoolchildren. Its main purpose, then and now, is to help students appreciate handcrafted objects as well as the skills that were needed to produce and decorate them. Through this approach, students gain a better understanding of the people who made and used these objects. Over the years the program has adapted to meet the differing needs of the students who visit and the changing curriculum requirements in the museum's surrounding four-state area.

An adjacent Activity Room is the setting for related arts and crafts projects and features a timeline mural as a permanent teaching tool.

The Touch-It Room is open to the public on weekends and weekday afternoons, and a member of Winterthur's guiding staff is always on hand to assist and answer questions. Please be sure to check the Winterthur Calendar to make sure the Touch-It Room is open during your expected visiting hours.

The Touch-It Room complex was funded by the Ronald McDonald Children's Charities.