Something Fishy

Yesterday, Grace and I met our friends Kellie and Dawson at the Akron Zoo for their toddler "stroller safari" program. The theme was Something Fishy and I thought it was going to be about fish and sea life, which seemed strange to me because it is a small zoo and they don't have an aquarium. It turned out that the focus was on animals that eat fish...very clever, if you ask me!I have to say, I was very impressed with the entire morning. We arrived before the zoo opened and went to a preschool classroom where the zoo educator introduced us to what we would do and see through music, a game, and stuffed toys of some of the animals we would see like the bald eagle, a jaguar, a penguin, tigers, otters, etc. There were about 12 children in the program with one or more caregivers, so we were a group of at least 25 people. The actual "safari" took us through the zoo to see some of the animals with a tour guide who told us about the animals in a way that the toddlers could understand. For example, she said that the bald eagle usually flies 40-60 miles per hour and then compared that to how fast Mommy and Daddy drive in the car. (I also learned that the word "bald" in Old English actually means "white", which is why it is a fitting name for this bird.)

To me, the best part of the program was when we fed the penguins. They promise an encounter with at least one animal when you sign up for the class and on this adventure we were each given three fish to feed to the penguins as they swam around their pool. Dawson and Grace were too young to put on the rubber glove (to protect the animals, not the humans!) so Kellie and I took turns holding the fish over the edge of the tank to lure the penguins to us. A thin pane of glass was all that separated the penguins from the girls and they were right at their eye level, so it was really cool. I wish we had pictures of it, but it is really hard to feed the animals, watch the kids, and capture the moment on film.

At some point during the morning, we gave up trying to take pictures because we ended up with backs of heads and blurry shots. Both Dawson and Grace are walking and Grace is really at this stage where she doesn't want to be held or confined. When she had the opportunity to walk around, she took it! She was the "naughty" kid in class during the first part of the morning...climbing onto the teacher's lap as she was singing and showing the stuffed animals and knocking the felt fish off the board after the other kids just put them up there. A little embarrassing, but still cute!We ended the program back int the classroom where they had a snack prepared for the kids. They used a pretzel rod and peanut butter to "fish" for goldfish crackers. What a good idea! I will have to remember that for a birthday party some day.