Wildwood Park (Field Trip #1)

On Thursday, we were all in need of some “out of the house” time.  So, while Ashley was in NY doing this, we decided to take our first field trip as well. 

Gracie, Ian, my mom, and I went to Wildwood Park (formerly known as Wildwood Lake Sanctuary) in Harrisburg.  The kids and I had gone there one other time and really enjoyed it.  The funny thing about this place is that I went to HACC for a year and passed it every single day and never even knew it was there.  I discovered it in Kids Love Pennsylvania (a book by George & Michele Zavatsky).

First we went into the Nature Center.  Usually, they have a great place to watch the birds, but they had to take the  birdfeeders down, due to an overabundance of bees; so we missed out on that part.  The center is divided up into stations – each one focuses on a different aspect of wetlands and the importance of them.  You pick up a little card and take it around to the stations – you insert the card into a machine that stamps it (much like the old timeclocks of old). 
I took pics of all of  them, but won’t bore you here – maybe I’ll post them on my FB page.

Here Gracie is looking at some different types of soil with a magnifying glass.

Ian enjoyed trying to figure out whose eggs were on the picture – the whole phone conversation intrigued him.

There’s an education room, where the focus seems to be on ladybugs.  This is a homeschool mom’s dream, as there are all kinds of worksheets to grab to bring home (for further study). 

Ian and I made this lady bug “puppet”, which turned out pretty cute (if I do say so myself).  The boy, however, is kinda crazy!

Gracie enjoyed looking at various specimens with the microscopes.

After checking out all the stations, the completed card looks like this, and will make a nice addition to the field trip section of our portfolios.

We spent a nice amount of time in the nature center, then decided to walk on the trails.  It looked as though they had gotten a great deal of rain because some of the sections (off the trail) seemed a bit washed out. 

If you take your time, walk slowly and quietly (which doesn’t seem possible for Ian), you have a great chance at seeing lots of different types of birds and other critters (we did see a squirrel or two). 

We also saw this section of an old tree, which I thought looked a great deal like a skull from a triceratops (but maybe I just have an overactive imagination and a son who likes dinosaurs).  Seriously, though, can’t you see the eye socket, the mouth, and even the little stubs where the horns were?!

We were intrigued by all the monkey vines along the nature trails. We tried to get Gracie to hang on one, but this was as good as it gets!

All in all, we had a very nice afternoon.  After Wildwood Park, we went to Five Below for water guns and to Starbucks for coffee.  Sounds like a good day, right?

Wonder where our next field trip will be?