Betty Brinn Children's Museum Review (Milwaukee, WI)

While we were on vacation, we visited the Betty Brinn Children's Museum in Milwaukee. The museum is right on the lakefront near two museums we'll have to go back and check out when X-man is older. One called Discovery World (which offers a science experience working cruise from Milwaukee to Montreal -- ahem.) and the other is the art museum. I took loads of photos that I'll put on on X-man's web site sooner or later, but for right now here are the highlights. 

1.) Admission is $6 per child/adult over the age of 1. 

2.) This is the first children's museum I've been in that had yuck bags AND hand sanitizer stations bolted on the walls. Since I was a mother who had a kid sticking everything in his mouth to until he was almost 2, having yuck bags would have made me feel like I wasn't some kind of crazy parent with a weird slobbery kid -- because clearly if there are bags, it's not just my kid.

3.) For the older set, they had a working TV studio, where kids could be newscasters, camera operators, play with green screens and be the news director of the broadcast. No, this isn't X-man, he was too young to give a crap about it. But I thought it was cool... 
4.) They had a "Backyard" world for kids 0-3. Near the front was a playhouse that had the usual household activities. But then when you stepped out on the porch you got a whole backyard, with a sandbox, a "water slide," a soft building area, a really cool constructed tree that the kids could climb into and more. Mostly X-man liked mowing the lawn.

5.) Like other children's museums, this one had a café and a grocery store. But it also had a florist, a bank, a garage and a post office. And as a letter carrier kids could deliver and pick up mail all around the "town." There were also phones that linked from one to the other, so you could call over to the post office and say, "I have a letter for you to pick up at the store." And some kid would come running over.  Or you could call the florist from work at the garage and pick up flowers on your way home...You can see X-man getting some milk out of the cooler to put in his cart in the back right of the photo.

6.) A section for the Arts. I loved this section, but it's definitely geared toward the 5 and up crowd. In addition to regular tables of arts and crafts (offered next to the inside of the GIANT glass clock that shows out into the downtown area so the kids can see the inner workings of the clock while they paint or draw), is a section where you can direct the Milwaukee Symphony, play with different instruments (film of MacTroll conducting is at the bottom of this post), put on a puppet show, put on a play, or in this exhibit, the Milwaukee Ballet leads kids through a warm up on a dance floor, and then teaches them different dance steps. X-man just wanted to push the buttons. 

7.) X-man's favorite exhibit was in the "town" area. And it's no surprise that it had to do with cars. Here he is working on changing the filter, adding coolant and window washer. Daddy helped him change the tires and Mommy helped with putting in a new exhaust system. We spent most of our time here saying, "Can we fix it? Yes, we can!"

8.) Outside on the terrace overlooking the waterfront, was a giant brio play train with a xylophone on the front. X-man loved driving the train. 

All in all, I'd gotten so used to Rockford/Bloomington/Champaign and Decatur's children's museums that it was nice to go to a new museum and see some familiar exhibits, but also find brand new ones. All of the exhibits were funded by community businesses/corporate sponsorships, which made me wish that our larger businesses would care enough about the Orpheum to put some money into it for exhibits that were as clean and well maintained as what we found at Betty Brinn.