Family Field Trip Fun ~ The Holtsville Ecology Center

The girls and I had so much fun visiting the Holtsville Ecology Center today.  We have been coming here since Emily was probably about 2 1/2 years old and always enjoy seeing and learning about the different animals.  I have to admit, we probably haven’t visited in at least a year, so when I saw a friend post pictures of their recent trip on Facebook, I knew we had to visit during our Spring Break from school.  It is about a 40 minute drive from our house, but it is totally worth it.  The girls always have a great time checking out the animals and then there is also a playground and a picnic area, so you can really make a nice day trip out of it.  Plus, since it is still an off season it was free to get in. (Although starting May 1st it is only $5.oo a car, which is totally worth it!!)

All ready to check out the animals!!

Emily and Clara really enjoyed feeding the goats, so I made sure I had a handful of quarters with me to buy the pellets to feed them.

A great view of the foxes.

Emily and Juliette really liked reading the information about each animal. They were very interested in their lifespan and how the different animals got here. The ecology center is a place for animals to live that can not be released back into the wild. The two bald eagles that live here have wing injuries and are unable to fly. We also found out that one of the foxes never learned to hunt and relies completely on humans to be fed.

I love that Emily and Juliette are at the point where they can read on their own and are actually looking to find out more information by reading the signs and plaques at the different places we go to.

It’s hard to pick a favorite animal to visit.

The farm section has chickens, cows, goats and a pig.

Inside the education building we found an Iguana

There was also an exhibit of stuffed animals, owl pellets and other interesting things.

Check out some of our other family field trips.

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Daisy Girl Scouts: Three Cheers For Animals Journey ~ Operation Happy Sock

My friend Sarah and I are Emily’s Daisy Girl Scout Troop leaders and we are currently working on the Three Cheers for Animals Journey.  When I found Operation Happy Sock on Pinterest I knew that this was the perfect service project for us.  A “Happy Sock” is simply a catnip toy made from a sock and they are super easy to make!  All you need is a sock, a handful of Poly-Fil and a pinch of Catnip.

I had the girls bring in some of their mismatched or old socks (I have a mountain of them that were perfect for this) to the meeting.  We had a nice sized pile of old socks that we quickly turned into fun new toys for cats.

To make a “Happy Sock” all you do is stuff a sock with the polyfil and a pinch of catnip.  Tie a knot at the ankle and you made a cute little cat some where very happy!! The girls with all 52 of their “Happy Socks” they were so excited about this project!

This was such a fun project to work on and we can’t wait to donate them to our local animal shelter! 

I purchased the supplies that we used at Walmart and they were very inexpensive.  We only used a 1 oz bag of catnip and we still have most of a huge bag of polyfil leftover. 

stART ~ If You Give a Pig a Party

Welcome to stART!  I am sorry I didn’t post last week, but we were all recovering from a horrible stomach virus and then preparing for Emily’s 5th Birthday Party.  We are back and I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

This week we have been reading If You Give A Pig A Party, by Laura Numeroff.  The girls love all of the books in the “If You Give A…” series by Laura Numeroff.  This one was especially perfect since we have been busy celebrating Emily’s 5th (Oh my goodness how is she 5 already!!) birthday.  The story line is simple but very cute, it tells  about all the funny things that happen if you give a party for a pig. The book kept both Emily and Juliette engaged in the story and is also wonderful for teaching cause and effect.

For this story we thought it would be fun to make a big and since we had some pink balloons leftover from Emily’s Party we used them, the girls were so excited to do some crafting with a balloon!  It is always fun to see how they react to new or different craft/art supplies :)

  I drew the shapes for the pig on pink construction paper and the girls cut them out.

Then they colored them and added details with crayons.

Next, they taped the ears and snout on to the pink balloon.

 

Finally, and I think their favorite part was using the black marker to make the eyes and mouth.

Emily and Juliette’s Partying Balloon Pigs!!!

Teatown Lake Nature Preserve

We went upstate to for a Pumpkin Blaze  so we decided to go up early and visit The Teatown Lake Reservation.  Teatown Lake Reservation is a 834-acre nature preserve which is located in the northwest section of Westchester County, New York.

The Nature Center

Emily and Juliette enjoyed seeing the different animals that were housed in the nature center.  We were able to see Turtles, snakes, ferrets, frogs, and different birds of prey.  These animals are cared for by the preserve because injuries have made it so that they can not be released into the wild.  Emily was very concerned about this and wanted to know what happened to each of the animals.  She was especially upset when she found out that many of the birds of prey were hit by cars .

Checking out the Turtle Tank

The Birds of Prey

The signs told you about each animal.  Emily was very interested in finding out why they were here and where they were found.

We were pleasantly surprised by how much fun we all had walking around the nature center and grounds.  We all agreed that we would love to come back and try some of the trails when the weather was a little warmer.  If you are ever in the area I highly recommend visiting.  The best part is that it is completely free!

stART ~ Cookie’s Week

 

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

This week we read Cookie's Week, by Cindy Ward.  This is another one of Emily’s most requested books to read at bedtime.  It is a simple story about the naughty things, like knocking a plant of the window that a cat, named Cookie does each day of the week.  This book is wonderful for teaching many different concepts such as cause and effect as well as days of the week.

For our art project Emily told me that she wanted to make a cat.  I thought that it would be fun to make a shape cat since we had a shape themed Muffin Tin Monday at the beginning of the week.  It is always fun when we are actually able to tie everything together really nicely like that :0)

First I cut out all the shapes and had everything ready for Emily before we started.  I cut out:

• 1 Large Black Oval
• 2 Black Triangles
• 2 Smaller Pink Triangles
• 2 Small Black Ovals
• 1 Large Black Circle
• 1 Small Pink Heart
• 1 Large Black C Shape

Emily listened to my directions to find the shapes that we needed.

Then she glued them together.  I gave her very general directions and let her place things where she thought they would look best.  When I cut out the shapes and had it waiting for her I actually had it laid out differently.  I love how she made hers look though :0)

She drew the face with white crayons…

 

…and colored in his fur with brown, grey, black and orange crayons.

Here is Emily’s Shape Cat.  She said his name is Jay Jay, just like Aunt Jayme and Uncle Jonathan’s cat.

Field Trip Fun ~ The Bronx Zoo

This year we got a membership to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which allows us to visit The Bronx Zoo, 3 other local zoos and the New York Aquarium all year long.  I was so excited about having this membership and couldn’t wait to use it.  For our first trip we planned on visiting the Bronx zoo with our friends.  Emily had a great time seeing all the different animals as well as going on a Bug Carousel and Monorail.  Juliette also had a great day and enjoyed seeing all of the animals too she really liked the children’s zoo, where she was able to feed goats and get really close to the animals!

I printed out an animal hunt sheet from PreKinders for the girls that had a picture and the name of 10 different animals that we might see at the zoo.  After we saw one of the animals the girls put a sticker on the box of the animal they saw.  I was not sure how this would go, but they were both really excited to do this and actually asked us to take the sheets out after they saw an animal that was on the sheet.

 

I have never seen so many butterflies in one place and so close to us too!  Emily was most excited when she saw the huge The Very Hungry Caterpillar book cover!!

The Bug Carousel ride was definitely a favorite part of the zoo.  Both Emily and Juliette loved riding on the different bugs!

 

I loved this part of the tiger exhibit, where we could compare our height to the height of a tiger. 

After an extremely long and cranky wait we had a great time on the Monorail.  We were able to see a lot of different animals and sit down and relax for a little bit. 

Emily had such a busy day, she was asleep before we even got back to the car!!

Sorting Fun ~ Plants and Animals

  Cut and Paste Plant and Animal Picture Sort

Since Spring is here we have been talking a lot about plants.  I saw the idea for this activity on Productive Parenting and have been thinking about doing this with Emily for awhile.  I wanted to print out some pictures of different plants and animals and finally got a chance to get it together.  She loved working on this activity and I am looking forward to making some other ones for her!

First, I printed out the Plant and Animal Pictures (click to download the one I made) and then Emily got to work cutting each one out.  As she was working on it we talked about each picture.  She was very excited to see the strawberry plant, since she can’t wait for ours to grow and the cat since she loves Aunt Jayme and Uncle Jonathan’s cat JayJ.

 

Emily glued the pictures onto a piece of construction paper that I labeled for her.

Emily’s finished project. 

She did all the cutting, gluing and sorting all by herself.  Now I can’t wait to put together another cut and sort activity for her :0)