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The kidSTREAM Children’s Museum in Camarillo had its grand opening May 21 and is expected to boost visitors to the city, strengthening the region’s tourism economy. “We’re thrilled about the opening of the kidSTREAM Children’s Museum in Camarillo,” Yuliana Garcia, executive director of the city’s travel marketer Visit Camarillo, the brand name of the Camarillo Hotel and Tourism Association, told the Business Times. 

June 10, 2026: It’s the first children’s museum to open in Ventura County, creating a hands-on space where kids can play, discover, and learn through interactive exhibits and activities. KTLA’s Megan Telles was live in Camarillo with a preview of the brand-new KidSTREAM Children’s Museum and all it has to offer local families.

June 4, 2026: Just 10 minutes from Amgen's Thousand Oaks campus, children can now dig for pygmy mammoth bones, crawl through a rolling wave tunnel, and pretend to shop and cook at a farmer's market, part of hands-on play at the newly opened kidSTREAM Children's Museum.

May 23, 2026: A drive through Moorpark and Thousand Oaks and down the Conejo Grade may now be well worth the inflated cost of gas for Simi families with young children. kidSTREAM Children’s Museum officially opened its doors May 21, fulfilling a long-awaited promise to provide Ventura County families with a permanent space dedicated to hands-on learning.

May 22, 2026: Talk to the passionate team behind kidSTREAM, a new children’s museum in Ventura County, and they’ll tell you about the many lofty goals they have for the 21,000-square-foot space which opened to the public Thursday.

May 22, 2026: Children in Ventura County now have a new place to explore and let their imagination run wild as a new museum opens its doors in Camarillo. kidSTREAM Children’s Museum held a grand opening on May 21, bringing hands-on science, technology, arts, and learning experiences to children in the community.

May 21, 2026: A new family-friendly museum is now open in Camarillo.

May 21, 2026: Kids will enjoy the opportunity this summer to dig through sand in search of a buried pigmy mammoth skeleton resembling one found on Santa Rosa Island in 1994. The species which went extinct around 13,000 years ago coexisted with Chumash people living in the region.

May 21, 2026:  Two-year-old Adam Sondgeroth sorted out toy groceries with his dad in an outdoor space at a brand-new children’s museum in Ventura County. The facility is just one of the interactive activities for children at KidSTREAM, the county's only children’s museum. It was the idea of founder Kristie Akl, who noticed a need for a kids' museum within easier reach for the community.

May 20, 2026:  A children’s museum opens May 21, over a year since it first broke ground at the site of the former Camarillo Public Library. The nonprofit, kidSTREAM, plans to hold the grand opening of its museum at 3100 E. Ponderosa Drive. Tickets are available for purchase for designated time slots between 1 to 5 p.m. on its website.

May 20, 2026: Savannah Ilao, 6, of Camarillo, surfs the Big Blue Wave at the kidSTREAM Children’s Museum in Camarillo on May 19, ahead of the grand opening on May 21. The outdoor area is agriculture-themed and designed to reflect the Channel Islands.

Opening May 21st, 2026, KidSTREAM is an interactive children’s museum designed to engage young learners and families in Camarillo through play and curiosity. The grand opening will begin with a private morning ceremony for founding partners and supporters, followed by a public opening in the early afternoon for families, caregivers, and their young explorers. 

April 25, 2026:  The kidSTREAM Children’s Museum is scheduled to open May 21 in Camaril­lo, creating a new educational space for children and families in Ventura County. The museum, located at the former Camarillo Public Library site, will fea­ture approximately 21,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor exhibits within a planned 30,000-square-foot campus. Pro­gramming will focus on science, technol­ogy, reading, engineering, arts and math, commonly referred to as STREAM.

April 21, 2026: kidSTREAM Children's Museum to Join a Growing Ecosystem of Organizations in Ventura County Collectively Investing in the Future of Our Children. 

April 19, 2026: The $7 million KidSTREAM museum was the brainchild of a former teacher looking for a place to entertain her young daughters. Kristie Akl still remembers the day the idea for KidSTREAM first began more than 12 years ago. The founder of the new children’s museum in Camarillo, in Ventura County in Southern California, had arrived at a local museum, Gull Wings Children’s Museum in Oxnard, with her three young daughters, only to find it closed.

Feb 24, 2026: kidSTREAM Children’s Museum began with a simple but powerful idea, first shared among a few close friends around a kitchen table, that every child deserves a place to explore, play, and discover.

That idea grew out of a clear need in Ventura County. There was no dedicated children’s museum serving the region for early childhood development, and many families were driving long distances to give their kids access to hands-on learning experiences.

Feb 20, 2025: Children donned hard hats and wielded blue shovels at a Jan. 31 groundbreaking ceremony for kidSTREAM Children’s Museum in Camarillo. The event also marked the completion of a $6 million fundraising drive for the museum, which will offer immersive, play-based learning experiences.

Feb 15, 2025: ON THE HORIZON—Kids, guests and supporters watch as confetti is shot in the air during kidSTREAM Children’s Museum groundbreaking ceremony on Jan. 31 in Camarillo.

Jan 31, 2025: A Camarillo children's museum met its $6 million fundraising goal and plans to move forward with renovating its site at the former Camarillo Public Library.

Jan 31, 2025: KidSTREAM in Camarillo is breaking ground on Friday.

It’s been years in the making – a place for children to explore and learn in Ventura County, without a long drive to a neighboring county.

Jan 27, 2025: "These kids are self-contained boxes full of activities science, technology, reading, engineering, the arts and math," said Michael Shanklin, executive director of kidSTREAM Children’s Museum.

October 5, 2024: By the end of the year, Camarillo’s future kidSTREAM museum will break ground. The children’s museum specializing in science, technology, reading, engineering, art and math (STREAM) education took part in last Saturday’s Our World: Worldwide Day of Play hosted by Nickelodeon and the Association of Children’s Museums, sponsored by Powell Financial Group. There, the museum gave demonstrations and showcased prototypes and future exhibits.

September 24, 2024 : kidSTREAM is planning to open fully in Camarillo next year, as Ventura County’s only children’s museum. Their participation in Saturday’s Worldwide Day Of Play is a chance for families to explore their exhibit space.

"180 museums around the world are participating in this event," explained Michael Shanklin, KidStream’s Executive Director. He says that as well as the benefits of play-based learning, families will have the opportunity to offer up their feedback on the exhibits. 

June 3, 2024: Bryan Yee shows how donors' names appear as gears that turn other gears at the kidSTREAM Children's Museum in Camarillo.

June 4, 2024: The kidSTREAM Children’s Museum in Camarillo plans to change every child’s life in Ventura County.

A $2 million donation by the biotechnology company Amgen and the Amgen Foundation brought kidSTREAM closer to that goal last month.

April 29, 2023: Bryan Yee, board president of kidSTREAM, is in awe of the generosity of his Camarillo neighbors.

The children’s museum recently received a $500,000 pledge from the Rotary Club of Camarillo Sunrise and the life savings of a 6-year-old. Yee said that since the nonprofit was established in 2016 its vision has become contagious, demonstrating that what starts as a seemingly small good deed can eventually change the lives of children.

“What has proven to be a fact is that once you have that first magical experience with kidSTREAM . . . you cannot help but lean in, and we’re seeing not only adults lean in but seeing a child lean in,” Yee said. “So we’re inviting the community to first get to know us.” 

October 24, 2022:  Water is running down an outside exhibit here at KidSTREAM Children's Museum in Camarillo, as children play. The site, at the former Camarillo Public Library, currently houses their Vision Room, where children are exploring hands-on exhibits – from a machine which makes colored scarves fly into the air, to a Musicon – a coding and music machine from Poland - which can be programmed to play music, using a series of buttons.

March 4, 2021: “This will be a one-of-a-kind educational experience in Ventura County, serving the Camarillo community through hands-on exhibits,” shared Camarillo Mayor Charlotte Craven. “It will fulfill a long-standing community desire for the children in our City, while serving children and families County-wide.”

July 17, 2017: An up-and-coming children’s museum in Ventura County got closer to becoming a reality when it reached a deal with Camarillo to occupy the space of the former city library after months of negotiations.

July 6, 2018: kidSTREAM, an emerging children’s museum, has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation to renovate the community room at the former Camarillo Library site.

Plans are to remodel the space into an interactive exhibit where children and families can participate in hands-on activities to develop a vision of what they’d like to have as part of the future children’s museum.