Memory Builder: Zoo & Aquarium Days with Grandkids — Grandkids Guide

Zoo days with grandkids are a specific kind of good.

Grandkids ask the questions nobody else asks. “Does it know we’re here?” “Is it bored?” “What does it think about at night?” These questions deserve real answers, or at least honest attempts at them. The conversations between the exhibits are often better than the exhibits.

Here’s how to build a day worth remembering.

The Free Ideas

1. The Spirit Animal Pick

Everyone picks a “spirit animal” from whatever you see today. You have to explain your pick.

Grandkids pick for grandparents too — this is mandatory. A grandkid who assigns their grandparent a sea turtle because “you move slow but you always get there eventually” has just delivered a compliment and a roast simultaneously. This is a proud moment for the grandkid.

The rules: you can’t pick a wolf or an eagle. Too easy. Look at the actual animals in the actual exhibits and find something specific and true.

2. Draw From Memory

At home, 30 minutes after the visit — not during, not right after: at home, while the day is still in mind — draw three animals you saw, from memory, without looking anything up.

Compare the drawings to photos of the real animals. The gap between the drawing and the actual animal is where the comedy and the learning both live.

Put the date on the drawings. Keep them.

3. The Animal Facts Debate

At each exhibit: pick one animal everyone stops at. Each person states one fact they know — or thinks they know. No looking things up yet.

After the fact-round, look them all up on a phone. Being wrong about animal facts is equally educational and considerably funnier. (Sea otters holding hands while they sleep: true. Penguins being good swimmers: very true. The average number of spots on a giraffe: considerably more than anyone guesses.)

Arts & Crafts to Do Together

Paper Bag Animal Masks

Use standard paper bags, colored construction paper, scissors, and glue to make masks of the animals that made the biggest impression today.

Make them that afternoon or that evening: cut out ears, color spots, draw eyes, add whiskers from thin strips of paper. Put them on. Reenact the zoo — grandparent narrates like a nature documentary (“The young cheetah approaches the watering hole…”) while grandkids are the animals.

Film 30 seconds of this. You will show it at every gathering for years.

Supplies: Paper bags, colored paper, scissors, glue — free or $2.

Clay Animals

Air-dry clay produces surprisingly good results when the subject is an animal someone just spent time looking at.

Make the animal that made the biggest impression today — the one you kept going back to, the one that surprised you. Keep the clay figure when it dries.

It will look approximately nothing like the real animal. Label it with a small paper flag pushed into the base: the animal’s name, the zoo, the date. Line them up on a shelf.

Supplies: Air-dry clay — see products below.

The Photo → Coloring Page Trick

Take a photo of the animal that made the biggest impression. At home, run it through a free sketch-conversion app (Colorscape, PicsArt) and print it as a line drawing.

Color it together while talking about what the animal was like when you saw it. Put the zoo name and date on the back.

What to Bring Along

Air dry clay — Bring a small piece in a zip-lock bag. Make a quick clay figure of your favorite animal on a bench between exhibits or at the café. Dry overnight. Crayola Air Dry Clay, $8–10.

Story dice — Roll the dice on a bench between exhibits and build a story where all the animals you’ve seen today are characters. Roll between each exhibit and add a plot development. By the exit the story is something genuinely strange. Rory’s Story Cubes, $12–15.

Colored pencils (50ct) — For the animal sketches on the move. Colored pencils work in the sun, don’t need water, and fit in a small pencil case. Crayola 50ct, $8–12.

The Question to Ask Today

“If you could talk to one animal here today, what would you ask it?”

There’s no wrong answer. “Do you like it here?” is one kind of question. “What did you eat this morning?” is another kind. “Are you scared of me?” reveals something else.

Follow up: “What do you think it would say back?” This is where the conversation gets good.

Weekday Morning Timing

Zoo and aquarium visits are substantially better on weekday mornings than weekend afternoons. The difference in crowd levels is not marginal — it’s complete.

A Beardsley Zoo Tuesday at 10am is a different experience than a Sunday at noon. If you have the flexibility: go on a Tuesday. Go early. Give grandkids time to linger at the exhibits they like without being moved along by a crowd behind them.

The sea turtles deserve more than thirty seconds.

Find zoos and aquariums in Fairfield County, CT →