Spring Break Kick-Start - MetroFamily Magazine
MetroFamily Magazine

Where OKC parents find fun & resources

Spring Break Kick-Start

by Emiley Bainbridge

Reading Time: 3 minutes 

The kids are out of school and you need some ideas to keep them entertained! Our guide to spring break activities features dozens of special events happening during the break, but we’ve hand-selected some of our favorites to give you this day-by-day plan for spring break fun.

Our gift to you, from one parent to another – planning work done, enjoy!

Day 1:

Take a family road trip to see Tulsa Zoo’s new BUGS exhibit! See gigantic robotic insects and arachnids hissing, buzzing, clicking and waving antennae and legs. Kids will enjoy climbing on a giant Monarch caterpillar sculpture and watching larger-than-life robotic butterflies. But beware – keep an eye out for the stinkbug that releases scented air!

Day 2:

Bring history to life at First Americans Museum! Explore the One Place, Many Nations: Acknowledging the 39 exhibit, which takes a deep dive into the unique histories, cultures, contributions and resilience of each of the 39 tribes that call Oklahoma home. Hands-on activities, interactive experiences, educational opportunities and rotating objects that share cultural experiences are all features of the exhibition.

Next, visit your local library! The Metropolitan Library System and Pioneer Library System offer multiple storytimes each week, plus craft and STEAM activities to engage all ages. The Downtown Library is just a few miles from the museum if you’d like to explore somewhere new.

Day 3:

Get your wiggles out! Myriad Gardens will be blooming with 30,000+ spring bulbs. Enjoy a spin on Mo’s Carousel and some fun in the Children’s Garden, which will be hosting daily activities from 10 a.m. to noon the week of Spring Break.

Next, fuel up with a picnic at Scissortail Park. Scout out a picturesque spot on the Great Lawn or head south to Scissortail Lower Park to enjoy the sports courts and nature-focus playground. Afterward, play a game of pickleball or head north to take a spin around Sky Rink, an outdoor roller-skating surface. You can also rent a pedal boat and cruise the park’s lake.

Day 4:

Explore local art museums! Oklahoma Contemporary has an outdoor art exhibit called Multiple Voices by Eva Schlegel, known for engineering steel and mirrors into spectacular, architectonic sculptures. Schlegel combined pieces from three Oklahoma poets into a new structure inspired by Oklahoma Contemporary’s architecture. Museum admission is always free.

Next, check out Oklahoma City Museum of Art, which has the largest public collection of Chihuly glass in the world! See his striking work, plus the multi-sensory experience Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight. This exhibit combines glass, video and audio to tell the story of Raven, a creator figure in Northwest Coast Native American culture. Raven takes visitors on a transformative journey through darkness into light. Singletary’s work fuses time-honored glassblowing traditions with Pacific Northwest Indigenous art.

Day 5:

Get wild! Feed the animals at the Oklahoma City Zoo! Families can hang out with giraffes or the Indian rhinos and help out with snack time. Reserve your animal feeding experience when you reserve your admission tickets online.

Next, go exploring at Martin Park Nature Center to enjoy the changing of seasons. The nature center offers cleverly hidden geocaching treasures, an ADA-accessible hiking trail and a bird wall that is a great place to get bird-watching tips. You can also feed carp and turtles from the park’s two bridges. They like to eat dry dog food and fresh veggies or fruits like apples but please do not feed other animals or give any animal bread.

Bonus:

Engage your kids in makerspace fun at the Science Museum Oklahoma! It’s full of exhibits where kids can get hands-on building dams to combat erosion, constructing with large-scale blocks, digging with excavators in the gardens or perfecting the art of a paper airplane. The museum has two dedicated makerspaces where activities change regularly to engage kids with a variety of STEAM experiences such as animation, puppetry, robotics, plastic fusion, snap circuits and even something called automata, which are mechanical toys driven by crankshafts.

Watch your child transform from a consumer to a creator with hands-on high-tech and low-tech tools available at a variety of makerspace in the Oklahoma City metro!

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