Smart parents know that getting kids excited about learning begins with play. Children soak in knowledge best by exploring their surroundings, and in Kansas City, opportunities abound for bridging learning with serious fun.
Pioneer the Past
Hitch a ride on the Oregon Trail back to the days of pioneers. The National Frontier Trails Museum offers combination tickets for a tour of the museum and a covered wagon ride through historic Independence from Pioneer Trails Adventures. While you’re there, be sure to walk along the quarter-mile pathway that circles the swales—wagon rut indentations still marking where thousands of wagons passed.
Combination tickets:Ages 6-12/$9; Ages 13+/$13National Frontier Trails Museum 318 W. Pacific Ave., Independence, MO
Tour the Oval Office
After an introductory film about our country’s 33rd president, transport your family to the White House on a tour of Harry S. Truman’s full-scale Oval Office at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum. Become executives-in-chief for a day with two floors of documents, photographs, videos and artifacts to peruse.
Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum 500 W. US Hwy. 24, Independence, MO
Become a Marine Biologist
Journey from the fresh waters of the Missouri River to the coral reefs of the Caribbean, and finally plunge into the deepest trenches of the Atlantic Ocean at Kansas City’s SEA LIFE aquarium, at Crown Center. Your little guppies will be wowed by the underwater tunnel and shark-infested tropical ocean tank. They can even wet their hands with real starfish and crabs in the Touchpool Experience.
Building Knowledge
Also at Crown Center, LEGOLAND Discovery Center is more than child’s play. For a geography lesson, tour the miniature Kansas City area at MINILAND and help your kids locate favorite landmarks. At the LEGO Racers Build and Test Zone, engineer your own racer for the speed test track, then make adjustments for a more aerodynamic ride. Take a lesson from a LEGO master at the Model Builder’s Workshop, enjoy a 4-D LEGO movie experience and top off your visit with an adventure ride. Everywhere you turn, opportunities abound to expand your child’s creativity and spatial intelligence.
Crown Center 2450 Grand Ave., Kansas City, MO
Get Mad About Science
Science City, located in Kansas City’s Union Station, is a place of unbridled exploration and experimentation.
- City Park/Music Park: Spin a zoetrope, practice musical drums, dance a tune across the floor piano and ride the sky bike across a tightrope.
- DinoLab/Digsite: Become a paleontologist for a day at the Digsite and uncover ancient dinosaur fossils. Then, view a real paleontologist in action at the DinoLab.
- Mr. E Hotel: Fool your senses and defy reality as you know it in this illusory world based on the work of the artist/mathematician, M. C. Escher.
- Gottlieb Planetarium*: Get lost in outer space at one of the largest 360-degree domed screens in the Midwest. Be dazzled by stars and constellations, planets and heavenly bodies, in an experience that is truly out of this world.
*additional cost
Science City tickets: $10.00; combination tickets available for planetarium and other attractions.
Union Station 30 W. Pershing Rd., Kansas City, MO
Wendy Connelly, Overland Park, eagerly anticipates visiting the new SEA LIFE and LEGOLAND attractions with her family of four.