June 15 – August 21
CAMPS + ACTIVITIES
ages + stages out + about
Puget Sound’s best-kept secrets
3 – 14 years old
Learning & Enrichment Outdoor Education Performing Arts Fine Arts Sports Day Camps Find registration information online:
www.evergreenschool.org
We made purple “flubber” at OMSI!
48 (Really Cheap) Hours in Portland Get your copy! ParentMap.com/52adventures
Try Our Try Our Free Demo Free Demo Class! Class!
Sunshine Music Together Weekly music class for children birth to age 5 & the grown-ups who LOVE them! www.sunshinemusictogether.com 206.281.1111 Queen Anne Anne Queen Anne Montlake Montlake Capitol Hill West Seattle West Seattle West Seattle Greenlake Greenlake Green Lake Lynnwood Redmond Redmond 32 • March 2020 • parentmap.com
continued from page 31 membership. (Regular OMSI admission is $15 for adults, $10.50 for kids.) My kids love OMSI’s Science Playground, a hands-on exploration lab dedicated to kids ages 6 and younger. They were occupied for a full hour, and covered with glittery white sand when I finally extracted them. (Note: The Science Playground is temporarily closed because the museum is working on creating exciting new experiences for the space.) Downstairs in the chemistry lab, we made purple “flubber” (a mixture of water, glue and borax) and tested metal solutions over a Bunsen burner. I’m not going to lie, it made my tiger-mom heart skip a beat to see my kids in a lab wearing safety goggles, even if that meant goggle imprints on our faces for the rest of the day. The enormous Turbine Hall is filled with hands-on mini science projects. You can build a paper helicopter to test in the wind tunnel, try your hand at math brainteasers or launch water bottle rockets. In the Life Science Hall, I walked my kids through an exhibit showing human development in utero, from conception to birth, with real specimens. For any woman who has ever carried a baby, the exhibit is deeply unsettling and unforgettable. Pro tip: OMSI’s swanky in-house restaurant, Theory, is yummy and affordable. Lunch for our family of four came in at $25. Ride the aerial tram Seattle doesn’t have any gondolas, so I had to take my transportation-loving kids to try out Portland’s aerial commuter tram (gobytram.com). The tram’s waterfront terminal is located directly across the Willamette from OMSI. You can walk over to the terminal via the Tilikum Crossing, a car-free, cable-stayed bridge built in 2015. If 1,720 feet is too long of a stroll for short legs, drive across the Ross Island Bridge. A round-trip ride on the tram is an affordable $5.10, and kids ages 6 and younger ride for free. In four thrilling minutes, you zip from South Waterfront up Marquam Hill. Look out from the landing on the ninth floor of the Oregon Health & Science University Hospital on a clear day, and you’ll see Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood. What a city, what a view!