"The World is Our Classroom" - A Field Trip Guide to Utah County

"The World Is Our Classroom"

Does that sound familiar? We discovered this weekend it is BYU's motto.... Or at least it's directly under the main "Brigham Young University" sign on campus. Who knew?! So BYU, and by extension ALL good Mormons, should embrace the possibility that homeschoolers have the best opportunity to learn for their augmented access to the world! Right?

Okay, I'm just kidding about the "all good Mormons" bit, but we here in Aggie land had no idea that BYU was so supportive of how we are trying to educate our kids.

Yes, we got out into the world, and this weekend we spent some time in Utah County. We rarely find ourselves there and were delighted to discover so much to do! So if you are like us, here are just a few destinations to get you started! (This pales in comparison to the field trip guide to the Salt Lake area. It's not to say there is less to do than in Salt Lake. WE just don't find ourselves in Provo very often, so here is where we started!)

Destination: BYU Museum of Art
Time: Mondays-Saturdays all year long
Cost: FREE
Review: I must confess the state of my people for this museum. My little 2 year old was under-slept and was howling to be let out of his stroller so he could run around and attack the exhibits. My older 3 were hungry. So we did NOT spend the time the museum deserved. So, as we sped through, warding off melt-downs of various kinds, I was able to appreciate a few things. First, the cost. Free is hard to beat. Unlike the Museum of Art at the UofU, this one is ALWAYS free. It is a tad smaller, but MY kids don't have the kind of art appetite that takes in a whole museum of art anyway, so the small size was just fine. We were there for "Cut," an exhibit featuring 40 historical costumes from movies. So we got to see THE ACTUAL clothes Johnny Depp wore playing Jack Sparrow. Hard to beat. Well, actually ALL the lovely, historic gowns beat Jack Sparrow's get-up. And it was cool to read which stars wore what. I could go on and on about how thrilled I was my fashion-interested girls saw this, but this was just a temporary exhibit. It seems the museum brings in some great stuff from around the world and is worth it! Visitor parking is on the north-east side of the museum and is very convenient.

Destination: Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum at BYU
Time: Mondays - Saturdays all year long
Cost: FREE
Review: This museum was actually our first stop. We parked in the Art Museum's parking lot and walked up the ramps (my kids called them the "Disney World of Sidewalks" - gotta love small pleasures!) to this museum. (If you do the same, the entrance to the building is on the east side. OR if you want to park closer, there is a lot on the north side of the Life Science Museum you can park in and get a pass for once you come inside.) This museum was lovely too. Free is hard to beat. And the displays feature mostly the real animals (dead and stuffed, obviously) so you get a sense of scale, which is thrilling for animals like elephants, giraffes and leaping lions and standing bears. The museum doesn't overwhelm the visitor with too much information to take in. My kids just wanted to run from animal to animal to see who would first spot the next cool thing. I'm sure we'd learn more on a second visit. THAT said, I don't know that there is so much there a third would add a whole lot. We probably spent between 60 and 90 minutes there. If the kids had slowed down, we could have learned more and maybe even been done in 2 hours. I must say, I preferred this over the zoo. First, you could get closer to the animals, and second, how often when you go to the zoo are the animals just laying around? Here, they were up to much cooler business (albeit very frozen business). Other notes: we missed the live animal encounters, but those do happen daily; and there is a good nursing spot in the basement ladies bathroom, but otherwise the basement isn't worth going down to see. Oh, AND we were there on a Saturday morning and it felt almost like a ghost town - so lovely to have it almost to ourselves!

Destination: Allan Hall Museum of People and Cultures at BYU
Time: Mondays-Fridays
Cost: FREE
Review: No review yet. I didn't realize it wasn't open Saturdays. Boo! Oh well! Hope to hit this one soon!

Destination: Provo City Library
Time: Standard City Library hours
Cost: FREE
Review: This was the spur of the moment back-up when we discovered the Museum of Peoples and Cultures was closed. I am a sucker for old buildings! This one is the origin of BYU - the old Brigham Young Academy. (And if you are a fan of the Great Brain books, the school Tom Fitzgerald actually attended. Cool!) So the building was fun. And it had a great children's section that the kids killed a lot of time in. I really like "The Attic" - a gallery on the 4th floor. The exhibit we caught was of original "Loony Tunes" still gels. The kids were thrilled it was cartoons, and we learned about how cartoons are made. Again, this exhibit is not permanent, but it looked like more cool stuff was to come.

Destination: Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork
Time: I think your best bet is to hit one of the many festivals hosted at the Temple
Cost: Tours are free, though donations are encouraged. Food is cheap - $6 for an adult plate; Festivals are also cheap.
Review: My son told his Sunday School class today about our experiences at this Temple yesterday. I wondered what they thought. There may be some people who feel children shouldn't be taken to places or events that don't reflect their beliefs. But it's hard to experience the world as any sort of classroom with that attitude. We seek after the virtuous, lovely, and of good report. We found it at the Krishna Temple. We were there for India Fest. We loved the relaxing music and we were entertained by the dancing. Before the entertainment began and between performance segments we explored and learned. We saw believers in the act of worshiping. We were invited to be blessed by the priest, and were, though we didn't understand what was said. We learned the Hare Krishna believe sound is an inlet to the soul. And we had our own beliefs affirmed - namely, that we are eternal beings clothed in bodies and that we find peace by being in tune with the divine. The girls LOVED the temple - they thought it looked like Jasmine's palace. I read reviews of it being run down, dangerous, and creepy. Here are my thoughts about those reviews. First, I think they clean the place up a bit before major events. Second, that such a place even exists in Utah without a large, tithe paying congregation is nothing short of miraculous to me. And third, it IS NOT Jasmine's palace. So it may not be worth the journey if you are an adult in search of a fantasy. BUT if you are interested in seeing and learning whatever the people and place have to teach in the moment, I bet you will come away with something beautiful. (If you go outside of an event, find someone to answer questions. We were there before things for India Fest got underway. Perhaps folks were busy, or at least I assumed they were, because no one stepped up to help us, point the way, or answer questions, and there was little informational or instructional literature laying around. I'm interested in going back just to have my many questions answered!)

Destination: Museum of Natural Curiosity in Lehi
Time: I don't know that there is a less-crowded time to go...
Cost: $15/adult; $12/child 3-12 years old
Review: (this was not on our most recent trip to Utah County, but part of our summer adventures. Read more about them here.) So if it isn't yet abundantly clear, I am a cheap skate, and first of all: OUCH! Wow, does that price tag sting! So if you've plopped down $51 dollars like I could have, you'd better have a great time, right? (Well, I was a guest with my sis-in-law who has a Thanksgiving Point membership, so we didn't pay THAT much. And STILL it WASN'T cheap.) We went when my sis-in-law hoped it would be less crowded - the middle of the week, around 4pm so right at dinner time. Our plan was foiled. The place was CRAWLING with kids! I couldn't imagine it MORE crowded. (I'm sure it could have been. I just have low crowd tolerance.) Anyway, my kids don't suffer from the same throng-phobia so they walked in, their jaws dropped, and they thanked me before doing anything, for bringing them to the best museum of their lives. They LOVED it! They climbed, crawled, leaped, sprayed, reached, jumped, felt and saw as much as they possibly could. We were there 2.5 hours and could have stayed longer but we were STARVING. If I had it to do again, I would plan 4+ hours at this place and bring food for a picnic if we get hungry. That said, though the kids would be thrilled, I don't know that I would do it again. Of all the museums, this one delivers the info in the most fun, engaging way. But there isn't a lot of info to deliver, so outside of the fun, physical nature of the exhibits, my 11 year old isn't going to learn a lot. Not enough to merit 2 visits. But that assumes he DID learn on the first visit. And in a place so packed, though you may want to take your time for some fun and simple instruction, if you do, 12 kids will jump in front of you, or 3 toddlers will be wailing where you are standing so trying to teach or learn anything begins to feel incredibly futile. (Speaking of toddlers, having one is a blessing. Going to a place this crowded with anyone else besides a toddler makes the protective mother in me cringe. It's a stranger-danger nightmare.) So yes, in my kids' dreams we go back. And IF we do, it will be a SCHOOL DAY from like 2-6 (to avoid field trip throngs), and either dad will be there or my two year old won't.