As an SF Bay Area parent, I have a ton of options for what to do with my kids. Celaya, my five year old daughter, has spent her weekday mornings in Bay Area parks since she could walk. We have the Exploratorium in San Francisco, the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose or Sausalito, the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, and many more play places and museums to choose from. We also have hiking trails, lakes, the ocean only 30 miles west and the bay shoreline that we can access from many entry points. You can get anything you want in the Bay Area if you just know where to look. When you take your kids to CuriOdyssey, you get the best of all worlds.
Homeschool
The problem I am finding is that most of the parks in the mornings and early afternoons are empty except for very small children. School has begun, and I homeschool my children. This never mattered much until recently when Celaya reached “school age.” All of her friends and most other kids her age headed off to kindergarten. We now have to actively seek new groups of homeschoolers to meet with, and I have to actively seek ways to engage her growing mind.
Also, I don’t just homeschool, I unschool. I’ve got a whole separate piece coming on what that means, but for now just know that we do not sit down at a desk each day and do formal instruction for hours, not even for one hour. We do a lot of hands on learning. Somewhere around midmorning we head out into the world to engage with it. We meet new people, we enjoy nature, and we breathe fresh air. Or we hit a museum or play place where Celaya can socialize with other kids and learn about the world around her.
It Comes Down to Money
Museums cost money though, sometimes a lot of money. For most of them I buy annual memberships because they pay for themselves in two visits. For the rest, you’re looking at $20- $30 per person per visit. That’s a lot of money, and I only have one kid that costs. Once Matilda is old enough, that’s another kid to pay for, and ideally I’d like four kids. Game over. I can’t afford entrance fees for four kids at $25, plus parking, plus cafe snacks, plus plus plus.
The Solution
What I have learned to do is find the public parks, museums, and zoos that charge minimal membership fees. The other trick is to take advantage of reciprocal entrance fees. If you have a membership, like I do, to the Oakland Zoo, you get a reciprocal list with your membership: dozens of other parks and museums will discount your entrance, sometimes by 50%.
The Oakland Zoo is only a fifteen minute drive from my house, and my kid could spend all day there, so the $100 annual membership is totally worth it. We get free parking, and we get visitors in for free with us; if granny comes to town for a visit, we could take her to the zoo. Those benefits alone make the membership a delicious piece of cake; the reciprocal list is the icing on the top.
Why You Should Take Your Kids to CuriOdyssey
One of the places in the Bay Area that offers reciprocal entrance fees to Oakland Zoo members is CuriOdyssey. I found this place by accident, which is why I decided to tell you about it. A girlfriend of mine invited us a couple years ago, and now my daughter begs to go back as often as possible.
Fees
CuriOdyssey is a nonprofit zoo/museum/nature preserve. The entrance fee for non members is $8 for kids and $11 for adults, and if you’re an Oakland Zoo member you get half off. So I paid less than $10 to get us in. I also had to pay $5 to get over the bridge, but you can avoid this if you can get over the San Mateo bridge before 10AM and use the carpool lane. My current mama goal in life is to someday get my kids together and leave the house before 10AM again. I’m a big dreamer.
You will also have to pay $6 for parking, but the parking fee gets you access to all of Coyote Point, which is where CuriOdyssey is located. Coyote Point Park is a huge swath of land reserved for public use. It includes a golf course, a boat dock, and two playgrounds, one of which is supposed to be magical. (I’ll report back when we finally make it over there.) The $6 is money well spent.
The total cost then was under $20 for a day of science, outside play, and a picnic lunch. My daughter complained when we had to leave after three hours because I had to get to work. She could easily have spent another couple hours entertaining herself. My little one enjoyed herself as well.
Getting There
I could not believe where it was located. CuriOdyssey is right off highway 101. I told my girlfriend I couldn’t believe I spent my whole life in the East Bay Area and I never knew about Coyote Point or CuriOdyssey. It’s been around since the 1950’s! From Hayward, I took the San Mateo Bridge west and got on 101 going north. About 6 miles up the highway is the Peninsula exit. Take it, turn right at the light at Airport, then left on Peninsula, and you’ll drive right up to the toll booth. It’s a quick 20 minute jaunt over to the peninsula from Hayward., which is super convenient for me with an infant who screams in the car.
Food
There are no food vendors, no restaurants, and no snack machines at the museum, so pack a lunch. There’s a lovely little picnic area within CuriOdyssey that has the coolest metal igloo that the kids cannot manage to stay out of. The kids have plenty of room to roam and play within site of the tables, the area has never been overcrowded when I’ve been there.
Hard Science
The exhibits on display for the kids are all interactive; there’s a tube that blows air through it aiming up at the sky where the kids can insert foam pieces and watch them float up and over the top of the tube, only to fall back to the ground again. Kids can make whirlpools in water tubes and look at geometric reflections in mirrored shapes. They can build energy with a ricochet and launch a ball across an open space, and they can watch how mist is made.
And that’s just inside. Outside is a giant sand table with water running through it, so kids can watch how water makes rivers through sediment. They can touch and play with and move the sand around the table to see how that changes results. There is also a giant magnetic wall with water trickling down and large magnet blocks that kids can manipulate to see how the water redirects around obstacles.
Animals and Books
Kids can then head indoors to check out spiders, snakes, and lizards. They can head to the aviary to check out the birds, or they can say hello to the bobcats and the otters. Kids can even watch the museum employees feed the animals and hear about how and what the animals eat. And on your way from inside to outside, you can stop at the bookstore (we usually hit it on our way out) and buy a cool book about science.
The books range from soft foam books about sea turtles to Intro to Coding books for tweens. We grabbed a foam book for Matilda and a book called Your Body for Celaya. Both are really cute and age appropriate. Matida’s book has detachable foam pieces that she can take out and put back in. Celaya’s book walks her through all the body parts, bones, muscles, organs, even tissue, and their basic function. She likes science, so this book is right up her alley.
Homeschool Part 2
Did I mention I’m homeschooling? I am. And I found out on my last visit to CuriOdyssey that they actually have a huge homeschool program. They offer class during the school year on Wednesdays for kids ranging from 5 to 13 in a variety of STEAM subjects. They have animals classes, programs that combine physics, chemistry, and biology, and even engineering classes. The cost for the class is a bit steep at $500 a quarter, which is about 8 classes, but homeschoolers save a ton of money by staying out of the system, so this, I think, is worth it.
Go
If you already know about this place, great, head back over, maybe we’ll see each other there. If not, check it out. Either way, take your kids to CuriOdyssey. It is a hidden gem that is not often talked about. CuriOddysey could easily be overshadowed by the Exploratorium or the California Academy of Sciences, but it doesn’t try to compete with its bigger counterparts. It embraces what it is: an intimate, science based, kid friendly place that is easy to access and affordable. Also, during the week, if no school groups are visiting, the museum is practically empty. Those other guys just can’t compete with that.