![Outdoor and garage toys at the Minnesota History Center ] JOELKOYAMA•jkoyama@startribune St. Paul, MN on May 15, 2014. The Minnesota History Center's "Toys" exhibit isn't just child's play. Focusing on toys and the advertising that helped sell them, the exhibit explores how the toys we played with reflected the societal eras in which we grew up.](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/PIPRPZNSPFZJ5WE7QSFXDBJ3Z4.jpg?&w=1080)
It's time to quit playing around if you want to see the popular "Toys of the '50s, '60s and '70s" exhibit at the Minnesota History Center.
The show is closing Jan. 4. Everything in the display — including the Davy Crockett coonskin cap and Erector Set from the 1950s, the Twister game and Tonka Toys trucks from the 1960s and the Speak & Spell and Pet Rocks from the 1970s — will be packed up and stored among all the other baby boomers' memories.
But don't run home crying to Mom just yet. The museum is extending its hours for the last week of the hands-on exhibit, giving more people a chance to throw a Nerf ball at a hoop or send a Slinky down the stairs.
It's not all just fun and games. There's a serious side to the exhibit, too, highlighting how the toys we played with reflected the society in which we lived. During the space race, for instance, science kits were all the rage. But an attempt to market a pink electric train to girls ran out of steam quickly as the soon-to-be feminists insisted on playing with the same trains that boys were using.
The center will be open on Dec. 29 (it's normally closed on Mondays) and on New Year's Day. The schedule: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 29; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Dec. 30; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 31; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Jan. 1, 2 and 3, and noon to 7 p.m. Jan. 4.
The center's stores and Cafe Minnesota also will be open.
Admission is $11, $9 for age 65-plus and college students with ID, $6 for ages 6 to 17, free for ages 5 and under. For more information, go to www.minnesotahistorycenter.org/exhibits or call 651-259-3000.
