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| - I recently brought two kids I babysit, aged 3 and 9, to the Geology Museum on a scorching-hot weekday. Parking is a mess, and I fortunately have a Meriter parking pass, so we walked there from the garage. Construction must be making things difficult, because on that fairly straightforward walk, we kept being kicked to the other side of the street by construction signs. This wouldn't be so big a deal, but 3-year-olds have a tendency to slowly drift across the street, rather than walk with a purpose. We were asked to sign in by an unattended book as we entered. I was fairly sure that the 9-year-old (boy) had already taken a class trip to see it, as he seemed nonplussed but well-aware of the various sections. He did take his totally-cowed little sister through the world's tiniest cave simulation, approximately six feet long. We also went into the mineral room with a black light, to show minerals that glow under that condition. While we only saw a few that actually lit up, but were also unclear on the instructions (make sure you read those thoroughly before turning the light off - it doesn't come back on for a while). They were both impressed by that, but wondered why so many didn't work (search me, kids, I went to law school). They weren't terribly intrigued by the shoehorning in of Wisconsin history as relates to the mining trade, but I appreciated it. Much of it was too over the head of the three-year-old, so a good game to play with toddlers is to have them pick out their favorite mineral in each case and attempt to pronounce it for them.
The kids breezed through the initial fossil section, paying little attention. It can be a bit dry when one is not on an organized trip with a guide to point out the interesting parts which keep them entertained. There was such a group in the next room, which really is the crowning jewel of the tiny museum. This is the room with dinosaur bones and bone molds, showing off several prehistoric skeletons from dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, etc.The guide was helpful and informative that day, and held the rapt attention of kids between the ages of 10 and 14, not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. It's a small museum, but it did have things that appeal to children of widely divergent ages and interests, and there are few museums who succeed at doing that. There's also a neat rock garden outside with a fountain. There is one central map of the garden, with descriptions of the type of rock that resides at each numbered space. The older boy loved scrambling around to find all the rocks, while the little girl enjoyed the fountain - but use caution around it, because those wet rocks are VERY slippery. I'm not sure how much there is left to return to this summer with the kids, but it's an excellent 1.5 hour diversion, and it's free.
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