Preschoolers at large—learning and growing outside the classroom

“Here you go, you may hold this bone, it goes right here beside the orca’s skull.”

We are at the Seattle Aquarium and four kids, aged three to six, are sitting on the floor with an aquarium naturalist putting a life-sized orca skeleton back together. They’ve touched the toothy jaws and stuck their fingers in the hole where the skull and spine will meet.

“You can have vertebra number two,” the woman says, handing the bone to my daughter who gently puts it in place. “There you go, here’s number three,” she says to the next child, and my son gets number four.

“But I’m three!” objects my son, holding out the bone indignantly.

”Oh you are? Okay, then yours is number three also. Now, number five…six…seven…eight, Oh! I mean three….”

The children work patiently putting each piece together, seeing the flippers like their hands, the teeth like their teeth, all laid out beautifully on the floor. I am amazed by their focus. To everyone’s delight, the naturalist ends the session by giving out trading cards with the photos and names of orcas living in Puget Sound.

When we get home the kids take out paper and pens and draw the whole skeleton again, and I help them label it with “orca” and “vertebra” and “skull.” It’s just another school day at home with my children.

When I decided to keep my first child home from preschool, I wondered if I was robbing her of the opportunity to learn. I looked at what our community had to offer the unfettered two- to six-year-old and was astounded by the choices—most of them low cost or free. When I did the math, I realized that the money I spent on preschool tuition could instead buy half a dozen local museum memberships—and both kids would learn a lot more than their colors, counting, and ABCs.

According to Alfie Kohn in The Schools our Children Deserve, children learn best by doing. So we set out to do it.

Now that my children are three years older I can see that we’ve accomplished a lot. We’ve seen a squid dissection at Point Defiance Zoo—and even came home with part of the squid! We’ve learned about the scientific method while watching marshmallow peeps shoot out of a cannon at the Pacific Science Center. We’ve manned a destroyer at Odyssey Maritime Museum. We return often to the Seattle Children’s Museum for their fabulous art projects. We’ve made paper sculptures, candles, masks, and lanterns—just to name a few. All of these are included with the cost of admission, and activities change frequently during the year, making it worthwhile to go back again and again. And for everything we’ve seen and done hands on, we’ve checked out a library book to learn more.

“When can we go to the dinosaur museum again, Mommy?” The first Thursday is a long anticipated day of the month, because on this one magical day many local museums are free. Seattle’s Burke Museum is one of the best. It’s just the right size for a morning visit with young children, and is filled with fascinating objects and artifacts that can be touched and held, discovered hidden in drawers, and especially sat upon. “Put me in the allosaur footprint, Mom! Look, I’m taking a bath!” The kids love to measure their bodies against dinosaur footprints, bones, and eggs. I lure them away with the promise of a mastodon and a saber-toothed cat, a drawer full of birds’ eggs, and a wall full of bugs—just around the corner. But the biggest draw is the mysterious rhino cave, formed when lava met the ancient beast long ago. “I want to sit in it!” they squeal, and not to worry, there’s room for them all.

On other free first Thursdays we’ve made paper knight helmets with visors that can really lift at the Seattle Art Museum. We’ve tried our hand at salmon canning at the Museum of History and Industry. We’ve enjoyed the astounding acoustics of Benaroya Hall during an afternoon free performance. We’ve made collages with old Japanese postage stamps and fancy origami paper at Seattle Asian Art Museum and then walked across the park to the beautiful—and also free—botanical conservatory.

How would my children’s preschool and kindergarten experiences compare to their traditionally schooled peers?

“Mom, where are my orca cards?” asks my daughter. “I want to write the names of all the girls in my journal.”

”Mom, ‘member dat lady give me a squid eye?” says my son. “It slippery!”

I’d say their education so far has been world class, yet very down to earth—just like the wonderful place we live. And hands on. Very hands on. Say, where did that squid eye get to?

For more learning opportunities in the community, check out story times and programs at your local libraries and museums. Many offer special dates each month with activities focused on younger children at no additional cost.