December 29, 2015

Nanny Life: Nature Center



this week the kiddos are on christmas break, so i had the privilege to take them out on a adventure! these two balls of joy love love LOVE the outdoors and every second they get they are sneaking outside to climb trees and ride their bikes. they can never keep their socks and shoes on while running in the dirt and some how always manage to fill their pockets with mud and sand that fall out all over the house. 

so today we went to Holiday Park Nature Center here in Indianapolis. they have been here several times before, but today was my first visit. it was a blast and so educational for the kids! 

oh and it was all FREE


here was a station with five different fur texture for you to feel the different softnesses between the animals, you could find here in the park. Rabbit, squirrel, fox, deer, and beaver. i had never felt a beavers fur before so i thought this table was super exciting! much softer than i imaged, i thought it would be more wiry since they are in the water a lot... but i know nothing about beavers. 


and of course there was coloring!!! we are obsessed with coloring (we color everyday) and of course a place for kids has to have some type of color station! we also made snowflakes out of coffee filters, but that was a little messy and dangerous with scissors so i was not able to get a picture.... but they loved to snowflakes so much that we had to make more when we got back home.  


here are these cute log cushion seats that were meant for sitting and reading books on, but instead we made an obstacle course and had a race on who could run through it the fastest..... and duhhhh, i lost.


this part was their absolute favorite part of the entire trip! they would not leave it alone! here you had to help the fox find his home through the woods, by using his sense of smell to find his way. there were about 5 different scent, good scents and one bad one... the yummy ones were mint, spiced bush, milkweed, wild ginger and the last one was to smell the fox den.... this one was extremely stinky and the kids thought that was hilarious and kept daring each other to smell it.

this little man ran around the entire room (while the place was filled with moms looking at me like i didn't belong... thanks bud). he was running around on all fours acting like a fox. after stopping a few time to rest and scratch his head with his back foot. he thought it was the coolest thing and didn't want to take it off. after several kids seeing him have so much fun with the dress up clothes they were eager to give it a try. 


puzzles, puzzles, puzzles! we had to do them all! these were especially cool because they were soft puzzles so they were easier to combine together. plus much more durable than normal puzzles because they are so hard to break and tare apart. maybe i'm "new" to watching and ben with kids, but i think this is genius!! 


this part was again very fun for them, but for the high anxiety person that i am..... it was a mess! water EVERYWHERE! the wore these water smocks, but in two seconds they were up the their elbows in the water making it pointless for the smocks. but of well, they had a blast! 


this winter has been abnormally warm and today we had our first snow! 



like i said they love the outdoors, so as soon as they saw snow they were ready to leave and catch as much as they can! today was a blast with these guys full of laugher and learning and i can't wait to make more memories with these two in a few days on our next adventure. 

thanks so stopping by!
if you are from Indianapolis or have ever been, what kid friendly things do you like to do? For free if any? i would love to hear your ideas in the comments! 
stick around to see more! 








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