If you are entertaining school kids during this week's Spring Vacation, I recommend a trip to the Peabody Museum in New Haven. My 8-year-old son and I spent an afternoon wandering among old bones and big bugs, learning a few things and enjoying ourselves. It's not as big or as fancy as the natural history museums in the big cities, but it has a lot of charm.
The Great Hall is a reliable "wow" for any kid interested in dinosaurs. My kid grabbed my phone to make his own guided video tour of a T-Rex skull:
The Peabody has a little bit of everything: geology, space exploration, Egyptian history, and the evolution of man and other creatures. We found a beautiful chunk of sulphur that comes from Sicily - not too far from Middletown's own Melilli.
We checked out dioramas of all kinds and considered the advantages of the wooden spears and darts carved by Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest. All in all, a great afternoon. Here's a couple of insider tips from someone in the museum business: good weather means a quiet museum, and school groups don't do afternoons. We had the run of the place, and we spent a long time in the tiny Discovery Room, watching those leaf cutting ants make short work of a pile of greens. We also checked out the poison dart frogs and magnified everything within reach of the electronic microscope. We'll be back!
The Peabody is part of Yale University, and it's open from 10 am to 5 pm every day except Sunday, when it's just noon to 5 pm. Admission is $7 for adults, and $5 for kids, but admission is free on Thursday afternoons from 2 to 5 pm during the school year. The museum is at 170 Whitney St. in New Haven, and it's about 30 minutes from Middletown. There's usually parking available in the lot next to the museum, or on the surrounding streets.
