A trip to a big city gives you an opportunity to showcase architecture. You can talk about building types and materials and structural concepts. Before your outing, draw together different structures such as a suspension bridge, arch, column, post and beam, and dome. Then on your trip, see who finds the structure first. You can really make the adventure fun by taking a boat ride and viewing the buildings from the river.
Thanks to our cousins for taking us on the Chicago water taxi. Tickets cost only $10 for an all day pass and you can buy them onsite at 400 North Michigan and Trump Plaza. If you want to outsource the architecture lessons to an expert, Chicago has several architecture tours:1. Chicago's First Lady Cruises - 90 min, $40 daytime, $43 night ride - Riverside Garden site, learn design of 50 buildings; now ranked by Trip Advisor on the list "10 Great US Tours"
http://www.cruisechicago.com/
2. Wendella Chicago River Architecture - 75 min tour, $30 adult, $15 children under age 11 - dock near Trump Tower, learn about the architects;
https://www.wendellaboats.com/
3. Shoreline Architecture Tours - 75 min. tour, adult $35 day, child $21 day, $29 adult night tour, $13 child night - see the Wrigley Building, Trump Tower, Marina City and more. Depart at Navy Pier's Polk Bros Park;
http://shorelinesightseeing.com/
If you prefer to combine sports and architecture, use your muscle and kayak the river with Kayak Chicago: $69/person
http://www.kayakchicago.com/tours/architectural-tour/
After the trip, talk about the types of building people live in today. Perhaps you live in a house, but you saw a lot of apartments in the big city. Ask your kids about other structures from the past (igloo, teepee, log cabin, pyramid). |
| "The Bean", Photo by Krenda |
We ended the trip walking to Millennium Park and admiring the Cloud Gate sculpture. The reflective steel sculpture commonly called "The Bean" was the first public artwork in the US by the famous artist Anish Kapoor.
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