This summer, we've been trying to do a lot of fun little day trips. What's the cheapest day trip you can find? Parks. And if you're not from PA, let me tell you, you are missing out on some amazing state and county parks! Andy grew up just down the road from where we now live, so he's quite familiar with all that the state and (local) county park systems have to offer. So this Saturday, when Ellie let us sleep in until a quarter after 8 (seriously!) we decided to take off and visit another favorite of his. We actually took a short trip to this park waaaaaay back when we were dating (yeah, that's what we did on dates), but haven't been back since. Turns out that it was butterfly weekend, so it was a perfect day to go!
First, inside the HUMONGOUS nature center, there was an informational session about caterpillars and worms and how they become butterflies and moths. There were a LOT of different live caterpillars on display that the kids were allowed to look at up close and even touch!
Ellie, being only 2.5, got bored of that pretty quickly though, so we headed outside to take a bit of a hike and see what kinds of wildlife we could find.
Well, our hike was fun and eventful (we lost Ellie's sunglasses somewhere along the trail and Andy had to double-back for them) but we didn't see any wildlife. Bummer. So we came back to the nature center and sat on the lawn and ate our picnic lunch.
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| My cell phone camera is awful, but I loved her "pebbles" hair-do!! |
And then we headed off on what the staff called a "storybook walk." I had no idea what that was, but it turned out awesome!
Basically, pages of a book about butterflies (The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That series) were laminated and posted at intervals along a trail. It was SO cute! When you came to a fork in the trail, you had to look down both options and see where your 'trail marker' was so that you stayed on the right path. The best part is, that even our 2.5 year old got it! We'd get to a fork and she'd look one way and then the other and then spot the pages and take off with absolute certainty that she hadn't lost the trail. There was SO much learning going on that the teacher in me was just giddy!
The trail took us past a lot of fun places too! Like a pond, where we finally saw...
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| A TURTLE!!!! |
Afterwards, we took a little walk through the sensory garden, which was full of wildflowers. And you know what that means this time of year?? BUTTERFLIES! Here are some of my favorite shots of the butterflies that we saw...
By this time, we were thoroughly hot and sweaty, but not ready to go home yet, so we went inside to see what all the nature center had to offer. I have to say, it is one of the nicest nature centers I've been to!
There were more turtles to see...
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| This girl LOVES turtles! |
And two areas that were set up specifically for kid exploration...
And then there's a whole giant room of wild game specimens, set up museum-style with habitat dioramas and everything! Here's the last picture of the day - Ellie posing with an actual elephant tusk...
We had SO much fun on this park trip - I can't believe it didn't cost us a thing! We will definitely be going back. If you're anywhere near the central PA area and you haven't yet visited Nixon Park (part of the York County Park System) you are missing out. I can't recommend it more highly - especially for homeschooling families. It's not like a typical state park where you can bring your pets or bikes and go and explore - pets and bikes are actually not permitted on any of the trails. This park is dedicated to wildlife and nature education - and they do a fabulous job at it! Check out the park website here and the nature center specifics here for more information. And no - no one asked me to give a review or for my opinion or anything like that. I just loved it so much, I couldn't keep it to myself :-)
