Science teachers of the Boston Public School system in 1913 got together with one common goal, to provide a place for children to go to have fun but be educated while doing so. The first inception of this goal was the Children’s Museum of Boston. It was run out of the Pinebank Mansion on Jamaica Pond in Jamaica Plain. From there it was moved to Jamaicaway, part of the Emerald Necklace, and now sits on Fort Point Channel because space was too limited at the facilities in Jamaicaway.

Michael Spock served as director of the museum for over 20 years, and it was during his time there that the “hands-on learning” idea was brought to museum clientele. Shortly after this the museum was moved to Fort Point Channel, it was here that the museum would finally settle. With the new larger space, Boston’s Japanese sister city, Kyoto, donated a Japanese silk merchant’s house to the museum. The house was built during feudal Japan, and because of the Japanese construction methods, the house was disassembled, flown to Boston and reassembled upon the grounds of the Museum. The name of the house is Kyo No Machiya, and is one of the few exhibits that never change.