Kansas City has a lot to offer your students. No matter what you’re teaching, you can find a field trip to pair it with- and even a free one at that! Use this list as a guide to find the right field trip for you and your classroom. Science, social studies, art, and more can all be complemented with one of these free field trips!
Kansas City Public Library
The Heart is a Fist
Grades: K-12
Virtual Option: No
Let your students wander the expanses of the library (in pairs, of course!) as they discover new books and fall in love with the magic of libraries. Teach them about the Dewey Decimal System and put their skills to the test as you ask them to retrieve certain subjects! After that, bring them to The Heart Is a Fist, full of contemporary Indigenous artwork. Joy Harjo was the first Indigenous individual to serve as US poet laureate, so you can integrate Native American culture in the classroom and have students write their own poems.
Frontier Army Museum
Grades: K-12
Virtual Option: Yes
This museum collects, preserves, and interprets the history of the US Army. It focuses on collections-based research, developing educational materials, and informing the public about the Frontier Army, Combined Arms Center, and Fort Leavenworth. Be sure to utilize their online resources for kids in order to create a cohesive lesson plan that pairs perfectly with the museum to prepare your students to get the most out of their visit!
Children’s Peace Pavilion
Grades: K-6
Virtual Option: No
The Peace Pavilion has over 25 interactive exhibits encouraging life skills such as conflict resolution, self-acceptance, cultural appreciation, and stewardship of the planet. Their Peace for ME exhibits promote self-care, social-emotional learning, and peaceful choices. Peace for US highlights peaceful communication. Peace for EVERYONE shows what everyone needs to live in peace and creates an understanding of diversity. Peace for THE PLANET encourages sustainability and harmony with the environment. So many exhibits to choose from! Let students vote ahead of time on what they are most interested in. The best way to integrate this into the classroom is with questions after the field trip about what your students learned, how it made them feel, and how they plan on implementing it into their daily lives. You can even create classroom goals based on the peace-making lessons!
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Money Museum
Financial Fables
Grades: K-5
Virtual Option: Yes
Financial Fables are stories that encourage reading, personal finance, and economics integrated into life lessons. Via quick and interactive online tales, students learn practical financial management skills to prepare them for the future. The fables are complete with online interactive books, video books, and activities. Students will relish in this useful, interactive learning. While at the museum, discuss what you’ve learned in the fables and how the lessons tie into what they’re experiencing at the museum.
Kaleidoscope
Creative Talent Series
Grades: K-8
Virtual Option: Yes
Students learn from Hallmark professionals through the Creative Talent Series. Every speaker has unique skills to share with students and encourages hard work, imagination, creativity, and dedication to the arts- and how that can translate to everyday life. These lectures are perfectly paired with arts and crafts, discussing careers in the arts, and having students recall details from the speeches.
Penguin Park
Penguin Statue
Grades: K-12
Virtual Option: No
Wrap up a lesson about penguins with a fun trip to the park and viewing a huge penguin statue! Tailor lesson plans to the grade of the students- you can cover life cycles, habitat, climate change, how research on penguins is conducted, and more while preparing to visit the statue. Students won’t learn much from the statue itself, but it’s a nice way to finish the unit all the while giving your students a chance to adventure at a beautiful park!
Kauffman Memorial Gardens
Grades: K-12
Virtual Option: No
Your students will love exploring these gardens and taking in the beauty of nature! Split into supervised groups or stay as a class as you wander the paths. Pair this with a lesson on ecosystems, the inner workings of flowers, molecular biology, pollination, and more based on grade level. Have students identify and sketch plants as they turn into young botanists.
Regardless of subject or grade level, there’s a field trip out there waiting for you. Field trips are effective ways to make your lessons more concrete, give students a breather from the repetition of the school day, and reignite a love of learning. So get out there with your classroom and explore what the city has in store!
Looking for more ‘free’ field trips? Visit Explorable Places to search for field trips based on subject, grade, location, activity and price. You’ll find just what you’re looking for.