Zoo Club: Animal Fun for NC Homeschoolers

There’s a screech owl in my friend’s living room, I thought to myself, eyebrows raised and forehead furrowed. I wonder how she feels about that? I glanced her way, looking for clues. She was grinning from ear to ear.

Zoo Club tends to have that effect on its members.

Heading into its fifth year, Zoo Club is an NC Zoo program offered exclusively to homeschoolers. It is designed to enhance curriculum for students in K-8th grades. Through the year-long program, zoo educators travel off-site to your group, providing two programs—one in fall and one in spring—with follow-up activity ideas reinforcing the program topic.

Coupled with off-site learning, are two on-site days (again, one spring and one fall; scheduled at registration) where groups travel to the zoo, spending special time with educators engaged in programs at various exhibit sites. No stuffy classroom settings allowed.

Though state budget cuts have diminished the advertising capacity of Zoo Club, educators remain committed. “Zoo Club is still important to us,” says Dr. Linda Oakleaf, visiting educator and coordinator to Zoo Club. She’s working hard to spread the word through Club families from years past.

I’m hard pressed to name one favorite thing about Zoo Club. The wide eyes competing with wider smiles as Franklin, the box turtle, is drawn from his travel crate; or the “ah-ha” moments of children as their entire bodies demonstrate what they’ve just learned through physical application. Or maybe it’s the on-site learning: times at the zoo pretending to be zoologists recording minute-by-minute analysis of animal behaviors or quietly moving through marshes (along boardwalks) listening as much as looking for life.

My children can tell you their favorites. Spending time with friends, running along zoo paths, playing Army around the bends—“Men! Take cover! Quick. Behind the bronze buffalo.” Then pausing their pretend for real-life learning; discovering obscure facts about animal habitats, nocturnal habits, predators and prey. Then somehow finding a way to work this new knowledge into their latest play scenario.

It’s all my favorite. I love the adventure of passing non-domesticated animals around living rooms. I love the enthusiasm of the zoo educators. I love how they bring learning to life through games and activities. I love our times at the zoo. We’ve gone from, “Oh my gosh. Mom! Look at the pink butt on that baboon—weird”, to “Hey, Mom. Look at the opposable thumb on the baboons. They’re just like the gorilla. You know what’s so good about opposable thumbs?”

I’ll sacrifice a little cost, a little drive and a little Army play; to engage in opposable thumb conversations, every time.


Interested in forming a Club?

Cost: $20 per child with max cost per family of $100

Grades: K-8th

Group Size: No fewer than 15, no more than 40 students

Off site travel restrictions: 100-mile radius from NC Zoo. For areas outside 25 miles, a one-time fee is charged (currently $.45 per mile)