I Spy: Wildlife!
Last updated: October 19, 2022, at 7:13 a.m. PT
Originally published: April 10, 2020, at 8:00 a.m. PT
The theme of the month in Kids Zone is Wild about Wildlife! Extend the fun at home with these great ideas for learning and fun:
Explore
The Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge is a quick day trip where in November they see an abundance of waterfowl and chum salmon. There are also some parks in the Puget Sound that are great to go bird watching. Audubon experts share how to get kids excited about birding in this blog post. While you are outdoors, challenge kids to complete a scavenger hunt!
Read
The King County Libraries have several books to learn more about wildlife. Daylight Starlight Wildlife teaches youth about diurnal (daytime) and nocturnal (nighttime) animals. Some Bugs is all about bugs we can find in our backyards. While learning about bugs, think about creating a bug zoo. You can also visit the World Wildlife Fund and learn about the many species they are working to protect.
Visit
While not in the wild, families can still learn about wildlife from visiting local zoos and aquariums. Seattle has the Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle Aquarium or take a day trip and venture down to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma. The Seattle Public and King County libraries offer museum or zoo passes for families to visit for free!
Families can also visit zoos virtually by viewing webcams from the San Diego Zoo, the Alaska Zoo, the Melbourne Zoo in Australia, or many others! Decide which zoos you will visit virtually with this online tool, then download the park map from the website. As a family, see what animals have web cams and find them on the map. Decide the best route to take to each of the animals and highlight the path on the map. Then following your route, visit each animal via web cam.
The Brookfield Zoo in Illinois has activity packs that you can fill out while visiting zoos in-person or virtually.
Wrap up your day of visiting zoos and observing and learning about animals with an animal craft!