A Wonderful Day in Nature: Part 1

I was so good about taking pictures of all of our learning activities this week. I think I took at least one picture of every activity and we did a lot! I was proud because I often don’t take pictures of our activities.  Today I forgot about those pictures and formatted my memory card…so sadly I lost all of those pictures.  I knew I was going to have a busy week, so my plan was to post all of our learning activities in one post rather than several different posts throughout the week. Sadly, they are gone but I do have today’s fun activity at the Nature Center.  I will have two posts today because I took many pictures. 

The Nature Center is a program by the Missouri Conservation Agency.  It is a wonderful piece of nature inside of the city.  There are 80 acres of forests, fields and creeks at the Nature Center.  It is extremely common to see wildlife such as deer and fox.  There are 3 miles of trails to walk, including the boardwalk over the lake marsh.  As you’ll see below there are many fun exhibits to explore.  Best of all, the center is completely free! Where else can a toddler have so much fun at no cost?

 

These first pictures show my daughter feeling furs, antlers, and other items found in nature. 

Since I was wanting to spend a day in nature, I wasn’t too excited by her extreme love of this play helicopter.  The reason I wasn’t too excited is because the helicopter has a video playing on the inside. I was trying to get her away from technology and into nature…She’s like her dad (okay me too..shhh…) with her love for technology.  There is this wonderful little area full of animal puppets that she ignored and never did play with because of all the time she spent on her helicopter. 

She did spend some time using the interactive activities at the Nature Center to learn about various animals, ecology, and the outdoors.

The Nature Center has a really fun little area where the children can play in trees. When I was a kid, this was one of my favorite places.  In the tree is a whole area of puppets. I had looked forward to playing with the puppets but she just wasn’t into puppet play today. 

 

There is an area with of drawers with many different types of rocks, fossils, and minerals to explore.

There is fish in the aquariums to watch…

When I was a little girl, this was also one of my favorite parts of the Nature Center. They have these trees with little displays inside of them.  I still think it is neat!

 

They have a fake cave inside for children to explore.  One of my Summer goals is to take her to see a real cave this summer. Missouri has a lot of caves so this shouldn’t be too hard.  I really like visiting caves so if you all have some you would recommend visiting near where you live, please let me know!

There is a little bird watching area that I just adore.  It has several different types of birds to watch, such as this turkey here. (We did see turkeys in the wild and I have more about that in my second post).

Part 2 will show our actual hike. We saw several deer and turkeys if that peaks your interest…

Do any of you have conservation areas inside of your city like this one?