What’s not to like about free field trips near me? We started investing in annual zoo memberships through The Bronx Zoo in 2021 and cannot imagine life without it. I refer to the membership as “free field trips near me” because you can write off most of the membership as a tax deduction if you itemize. What a win-win in my books!
Though we only get up to The Bronx Zoo once a year for their holiday lights festival, we go at least once a month to the New York Aquarium and the Prospect Park Zoo, so we definitely recoup the cost of membership. The Bronx Zoo is also the only entity that had discounts on membership this year and last year (we had a 20% discount to join in 2021 and a 15% discount this year). Even without these discounts, the membership is still a must have in our supplementing school education budget.
Because of its location by the beach, aquarium visits, especially in the summer, also helped us hit our goal of spending 1000 hours outside.
Questions to ask your kids at the aquarium
To extend learning at a place that you visit pretty frequently, ask fun questions. Here are some ideas for an aquarium visit:
- How many fish or sea creatures have bigger mouths than you?
- Are there sea creatures that look like land or air creatures?
- What name would you give the largest penguin and why?
- How many movies or TV shows that you’ve watched have fish or sea creatures?
- Which sea creature do you want to be for a day and why?
- Which sea creature do you think [nana/papa/insert name] would be?
- A starfish, a whale, a poisonous frog, an octopus – who would win?
- Can you find a fish, coral, or animal for every color of the rainbow?
What to do after visiting the New York Aquarium
The food situation in Coney Island isn’t great, and if you’re really keeping to the theme of free field trips near me, I suggest packing a Thermos or lunchbox with a picnic lunch to enjoy at the beach. Otherwise, I would recommend hopping the train a few stops to Brighton Beach to sample Eastern European food. If it’s summer, you can also enjoy the beachfront there.
To extend your learning day though, it helps to stay in the aquarium area and visit Deno’s amusement park afterwards. Luna Park is exorbitantly priced and maybe has six kiddie rides, so your best bet for the younger kids is to walk through the Deno’s. You can have conversations about how the rides work and build your own roller coasters or read about them at home afterwards. Some neat amusement park learning resources:
Other free field trips near me
When thinking of your educational provisioning budget, plan to add memberships to institutions near you that offer opportunities for practically free field trips near me. Your local botanical gardens, children’s museum, and historical sites deserve consideration. There’s no shortage of sick days or disrupted school days, so it’s always a good idea to have a fun place to go where organic learning can happen and where you know you can extend learning time at home.
