Three Free Things to Do with Kids Over Spring Break
A spring break vacation is a welcome retreat from the busy school year. However, a week entertaining kids can get expensive. To keep your budget from breaking, too, here are three fabulous and free things to do with kids this season.
Every Kid Outdoors Program
Let your fourth grader pick up the fees on your next visit to any national park through the Every Kid Outdoors program. The program invites fourth graders to visit any national park for free. In addition, their pass is good for a limited number of travelers who accompany the fourth grader. Kids can get a pass by going to www.everykidoutdoors.gov, completing an online game, and downloading a paper voucher. These can be redeemed at any park for a durable plastic pass. Georgia has 10 destinations participating in the program.
Learn to Fly
How cool would it be to come back from spring break to tell your friends you flew a plane? Children 8 – 17 can with the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA) Young Eagles Program. Just make an appointment with your local chapter and schedule a flight. Kids learn about what a pilot has to do before the flight, a little about aeronautics, and then, of course, they get to go up in a plane for a ride, and just maybe take the controls for a minute or two. After the flight, students age 14 – 17 are eligible for a free online flight training course. Young Eagles also offers them a voucher for their first flight lesson with an instructor (after the first half of the online flight school training course is complete).
Fight the Last Hundred Yards
At the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, Georgia, a life-sized, walk-through diorama depicts the fight for the last 100 yards of some of the toughest battles throughout U.S. history. If that's a little bit much, take a walk outside and back in time to the 1940s, and a genuine World War II-era Army base. Visit the mess hall, pray in the chapel, visit the supply room, as well as the headquarters used by Gen. George S. Patton before his deployment to North Africa.
