Vacations Blog

Where do you go to drop almost $100 bucks just for a few hours of family fun and maybe a drop or two of learning?  A children’s museum, of course.  We are visiting family in Connecticut, and so we took the late morning of a sunny Friday and headed to Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk.  Right off I-95 and set back from the road in Mathews Park, Stepping Stones is remarkable from the outside with its unusual roof that you can actually see from the highway.  Inside is a wonderland of hands-on activity for young children.

Stepping Stones Museum For Children

Admission is $9 per person for anyone over age 1, with no AAA discount.  (Our subtotal = $36.)  You are greeted by a larger-than-life mechanical apparatus that reminds me of the old Mousetrap game.  Kids stand around it transfixed by the cranking and levering and rolling of balls inside the plexiglass shield.

Mousetrap!

Off to the left is the main gallery, with exhibits that focus on the rain forest, the body, bugs, inventions, and more.  Our 4-year-old is still talking about how he watched the chambers of the heart pump blood through the body.

Behind you is the interactive water activity room, where workers stand at the doorway and strap waterproof smocks on the kids as they enter.  Unless they resist, of course.

Watch the balls go down the drain...

...see where they come out, and start over.

The kids explore a whirlpool, a fog maker, and a weather map, among other wonders.

Fog maker

Weather map

Down a hallway you will pass through the tiny cafeteria on your way to the doors to the outside.  Offerings include fresh sandwiches, juice boxes, fruit, yogurt, cookies, etc.  We got three sandwiches, three drinks, a bag of Sun Chips, and a cup of fruit.  Subtotal $23.60.  You can, of course, pack your own lunch and bring it in, which many families were doing when we were there.

We sat outside and after eating their lunches the kids enjoyed making constructions with big blue blocks in the area under the ample shade sails.  There is a stage for live shows which happen regularly during summer evenings.  Our kids worked with new friends destroying the towers and piles created by other children and making new structures with their materials.

Building stuff

Wrecking stuff

I appreciated that the two areas that are designated play areas for children 3 and under were diligently staffed and older children who ventured in were kindly urged to play elsewhere.  This kind of oversight kept those special play areas safe for the little ones.  Both kids were welcome in the resource center, which provided a lower-energy, quiet place to look at books and play with toys while parents relaxed on the couch.  Some interactive fun was included, of course, when the Madagascar cockroaches were let out of their terrarium.

Keep your distance, kid.

There is a garden gate that the little one loved, inexplicably positioned out in the open.  He had a hard time letting others pass.

None shall pass!

The gift shop, as museum gift shops go, was tiny and jam-packed with toys that had nothing to do with any of the exhibits in the museum, but with their target audience that did not matter.  I indulged the children and rang up a tab of $41 (which also included a CT family guide book for me).  Since traffic back north on I-95 was stop and go and their treasures distracted the children from whining, I considered it money well spent.

We spent a total of 2.5 hours and $100.60 at Stepping Stones.  We certainly could have done it for the cost of admission alone, which I would recommend, but overall it was a good way to spend some quality time together and actually learn something.