Nature Hour at Ho'omaluhia

Last week I took my kids to the Nature Hour for Tiny Tots at Ho'omaluhia.  I've been wanting to go to one of their programs for awhile now and it finally worked into our schedule!  The theme for the nature hour was Ducks and they started by reading books about ducks and other farm animals and doing some song and finger skits too.

After the story time there were a number of stations the kids could go to where they could learn about ducks and farm animals through hands on experiences.  At one station they had blocks where you could build a pen and then sort the animals by farm animals and wild animals.  Another station had snorkel fins that kids could wear and walk like ducks.  There was a barnyard puzzle, a chance to play duck, duck, goose and a couple other stations I don't remember right now.

In addition to the stations, the kids got to do a craft where they made a little duck.  One of the ladies in charge of that station nearly drove me crazy with her micromanaging - "no, don't put the glue on the blue felt, put it on the orange feet" - talk about no room for creativity or self-expression, but I bit my tongue, followed her exact directions and moved on to something else as soon as I could.

After going through the stations, we walked around outside and saw some real live ducks.  We followed the trail next to the visitor's center until it ended it a grassy field.  It looked like a lot of families had packed a lunch and were heading down to eat it by the lake but we didn't take a lunch and didn't walk all the way down to the lake.  Maybe we'll do that next time.

Do it yourself:
• Ho'omaluhia Botanical Gardens is located in Kaneohe at 45-680 Luluku Road.
• For information on their Nature Hour for Tiny Tots visit this webpage and scroll down to Ho'omaluhia.  The next two scheduled dates & times are from 10:30 to 11:30 AM on May 18 with a theme of Rocks and June 15 with the theme of Seeds.  It says a reservation is required but oops, I didn't know that and there was no indication of that when we went last week.


Thanks to SteadyMom for hosting her Moms' 30-Minute Blog Challenge and helping me to be efficient with my blogging time!