Sensory Friendly Mornings

Join the museum before regular opening hours to view special exhibitions in a sensory-friendly environment!

Join Shelburne Museum for Sensory Friendly Mornings!

Every month, May through October, we invite the community into the Museum before regular opening hours to view special exhibitions at the Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education in a light and sound adjusted environment. This program for children, teens, and adults alike is designed to offer a positive museum-going experience for visitors with varying sensory processing differences.

Know Before You Go resources are available to help prepare for your visit.

These materials include a social narrative guide, sensory conditions guide, physical accessibility guide, and communication aid. Additionally, a limited number of noise-cancelling headphones, fidget toys, and a private sitting room will be available for participant use. Materials will be sent prior to events. If you have any questions or need them sooner for planning, please do not hesitate to email us, education@shelburnemuseum.org.

Pre-registration is required.

Please register through Eventbrite, phone 802-985-0924, or education@shelburnemuseum.org. Registration will be capped at 40 participants to help maintain a sensory-friendly environment for visitors.

For questions, please contact education@shelburnemuseum.org

Exhibitions on View

Each Sensory-Friendly Morning begins in one focused location, but participants are also able to explore the grounds and a selection of Museum buildings prior to Museum open hours.

Each morning, in addition to the exhibitions below, participants are able to access: Round Barn, Circus Building, Train Station and Locomotive, Lighthouse, Pleissner Gallery, Owl Cottage, Covered Bridge, Horseshoe Barn, Shaker Shed, Jail, Variety Unit, Toy Shop, Schoolhouse, and all gardens and grounds.

All Saturdays with the exception of June 20:

Varied and Alive: New and Rarely Seen Treasures from the Collection

Guided by founder Electra Havemeyer Webb’s vision of Shelburne Museum as a “project varied and alive,” this exhibition celebrates the Museum’s vast and varied permanent collection. Objects ranging from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries will showcase the incredible depth and breadth of the Museum’s collection rooted in Mrs. Webb’s collecting legacy. A curatorial tour de force, objects on view include folk art paintings, circus posters, porcelain, textiles, toys, and trade signs—some beloved favorites, others not seen in decades.

Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont

Exploring how America’s beloved illustrator Norman Rockwell (1894–1978) crafted an idealized vision of Vermont—nostalgic, resilient, and mythic—during his most prolific years in Arlington (1939–1953). In his works, Rockwell offered a nation battered by the Great Depression and weathering World War II a reassuring image of American life: orderly, self-reliant, and picturesque. Through paintings and illustrations, Rockwell captured not simply scenes of New England life, but a deeply rooted ethos, one in which democratic community, moral clarity, and quiet individualism flourished.

Featuring the newly acquired Rockwell paintings to Shelburne Museum celebrating Vermont’s granite industry—long regarded as the state’s “backbone”—Norman Rockwell: At Home in Vermont examines not only the imagery but the careful mythmaking that made Vermont central to Rockwell’s enduring vision of America.

For June 20:

Circus Building and Carousel

The Circus Building and carousel are favorite attractions for families visiting Shelburne Museum. The fanciful, horseshoe-shaped Circus Building was specifically designed to showcase the hand-carved miniature Arnold Circus Parade, which stretches nearly the full length of the building’s 518 feet. The Circus Building is also where you will find enchanting, hand-painted carousel figures—horses, tigers, giraffes, and more—made by the renowned Gustav Dentzel Carousel Company.

Among the most popular exhibitions at Shelburne Museum are two hand-carved wood circus models. The Arnold Circus Parade was made between 1925 and 1955 and forms a parade more than 500 feet long. The 4,000 one-inch-to-one-foot scale figures include clowns, acrobats, animals, and circus wagons, evoking the heyday of the circus era. The Kirk Brothers Circus is a miniature three-ring circus, complete with an audience, comprised of more than 3,500 pieces. Edgar Kirk fashioned the figures over a period of forty years using only a treadle jigsaw and penknife.