Now hold on; as my readers know, normally I don’t advocate taking children to zoos. There are too many sad stories of animals who are unhappy in captivity, and your money is far better spent at a sanctuary. But today, we were invited to an Easter event at a local petting zoo, and I will say that Veronika seemed delighted in this chance to see the animals. So with some hesitation, here is my post about it as a field trip.

For the most part, this place was more petting zoo than exotic zoo. That meant lots of chances to see familiar animals up close, like pigs, goats, cows, and ponies.

The goats seemed to love Veronika! She also enjoyed seeing her brother feed them special cones filled with treats.

As we paused by each animal enclosure, I pointed out the name and the animal’s features, and made the appropriate sounds (moo, oink, maa) to turn it into a learning experience.

I will say, it was neat for a moment to see small primates, such as lemurs, who were kept in an enrichment environment.

If you do find yourself at a zoo, there probably is a lot more for a young infant to look at and enjoy than just the animals. Veronika also got to see the train ride:

Enjoy lunch time at a picnic table:

Take in a silly chicken puppet show:

Observe a playground with kid-sized houses:

And so much more. She sure did look happy.

We kept up the fun at home, going back over some of the animals we’d seen that day in her baby books.

She seemed to especially like the fluffy bunnies that she’d seen at the special Easter event.

You can also sing Old Macdonald Had a Farm while using a farm playset.

It was good “review” of everything she’d seen in the afternoon!