Spend a couple hours digging for dinosaur bones, milking a cow, or making a map of Madison!
The Madison Children's Museum is a fun and educational place where your kids can spend hours playing and learning.
Driving Directions: The closest parking ramp to the Madison Children's Museum is the State Street Capitol Ramp on the corner of W. Johnson Street and N. Carroll Street. If coming from campus, simply take W. Johnson Street to the ramp. If coming from the beltline, take the John Nolen Dr. exit. Then take a left on S. Broom St. Follow Broom Street to W. Johnson St. and take a right. The ramp is two blocks down on your right. Insider Tip: If this parking ramp is full, try the Overture Center Ramp. Exit the State Street Capitol Ramp on N. Carroll and turn right. Take the next right onto W. Dayton St. and follow it as it turns left past State Street. Then take the next right onto W. Mifflin St. and find the ramp a block down on your right.
Hours: Madison Children's Museum is open Monday through Friday from 9 am to 4 pm; Saturday from 9 am to 5 pm; and Sunday from 12 pm to 5 pm. Prices are free for children under 1 and members, $5 for kids and adults, and $4 for grandparents age 55 and up. Special 25-cent rates apply to certain individuals. And don't miss the Free Admission on the first Sunday of every month.
The Madison Children's Museum on State Street may be small in size compared to Milwaukee's Betty Brinn Children's Museum or Chicago's children's museum on Navy Pier, but it has enough to keep kids occupied for hours.
The museum has two floors. On the first floor is a play space just for younger kids, from age 0-5. There is a spot for reading, playing music, playing house, and splashing their hands in the water. Older children can view the activity from a loft and peer at the little ones through a telescope. Also on the first floor is a light room that takes shadow pictures, a construction site, and a map area. The construction site has a table filled with small rocks and little trucks, such as diggers and dump trucks to move the rocks around. A caged-in area has a larger crane that kids can operate. Children six and older get to sit in the rig and move the controls, and younger children can operate it with the help of an adult. The map area has a large satellite photo of downtown Madison on the wall. On a table in front of it is a large map with the main streets and the capitol and lakes. Small wooden toys of cars and buildings and roads and trees can be added to the scene. Children can even crawl under the table and pop up in holes in the wooden play table to construct a scene around them.
Upstairs on the second floor is a wind boat, a room for milking cows, a dinosaur area, and a garden. In the milk house are two fiberglass cows. Put on some boots and a plaid shirt and try milking one. Or try the dinosaur area. There is a sand box where you can dig for dinosaur bones. Put on the gloves and goggles before you go to work, though! There is a book nearby to show you where the bones are located and then to help you determine which bone it was on the dinosaur skeleton that you found. Behind the dig is a wooden dinosaur replica that you can put together bone by bone (Insider tip: Be careful, it is wobbly! Have one person hold it while the other adds bones. The pieces hurt when they fall on your feet!) A jeep and tent are also in the area and a table for the scientists to do dinosaur work. There are books about dinosaurs and a place to make rubbings of bones or fossils with paper and crayons. Over in the garden area is a window that overlooks the Capitol, just yards away. The soft veggie and fruit replicas can be planted in holes in the garden or you can take the food to market.
There is so much to do in the small spaces found here that your children will have a hard time leaving!
Area Attractions
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