Curious George comes to life for kids

CURIOUS GEORGE, the little monkey who has captured the imagination and hearts of millions of children and adults for 65 years, comes to life in a special exhibit at the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum, 929 E. Wisconsin Ave.

Curious George™: Let’s Get Curious!, an interactive exhibit created by the Minnesota Children’s Museum in partnership with Universal Studios Consumer Products Group, is sponsored locally by the Northwestern Mutual Foundation and runs through June 1.

Visitors will recognize familiar characters and places featured in the classic stories and the PBS KIDS television series, which received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Children’s Animated Program.

Geared for children ages 3-7, the exhibition explores early science, math and engineering through hands-on interactive play. Inside the exhibit, youngsters and their caregivers can explore the neighborhood where Curious George lives with his friend, The Man with the Yellow Hat. There they will find an immersive environment filled with a wide variety of engaging activities:

• Apartment Building – Wheels move Curious George on pulleys from window to window. Inside the building, kids can experiment with color, light, patterns and shadows.

• Sidewalk Produce Stands – Customers and salespersons explore shape, sorting, weighing and counting with fruit and vegetables.

• Construction Site – Climb into this site and design a building. The site also has building materials for constructing different structures and machines to move the materials.

• City Park – Take advantage of urban green space to rest, give a hug to a full-size Curious George or take a picture. Babies and toddlers will enjoy busywall activities.

• Mini Golf – Putt through three holes, using pipes, ramps, funnels, turntables, bumpers and force to experiment with physics and engineering.

• Space Rocket – See the rocket Curious George took on his space adventure, catch a glimpse of George in his space suit and then take a picture from the control station and e-mail it home.

• Farm – Take a vacation to the country and use wind power to move yard-art like whirligigs, windmills, windsocks and and chimes. Build your own whirligigs or windsocks and care for the farm animals.

A special “Museum within the Museum” is offered for parents as well as children. Details are provided about Curious George creators H.A. and Margret Rey and their escape from France during World War II, which saved the Curious George manuscript.

One of the leading children’s museums in the country, the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational resources that promote the healthy development of children from birth to 10. Since opening in 1995, almost 2 million children and adults have visited the museum at the east end of Wisconsin Avenue overlooking Lake Michigan.

Betty Brinn is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. and noon-5 p.m. Sun. For information on all museum activities, call 414-390-KIDS (5437) or visit www.bbcmkids.org. Local media sponsors for the Curious George exhibit are Clear Channel Outdoor, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee Public Television and 94.5 WKTI.