One of the things I love about living in NC is that there are tons of great places to visit and lots of kid-friendly things to do.  And whenever we travel, we always try to plan at least one activity that is specifically kid-friendly for Little.  Bonus if it helps us break up a long road trip.  Back in September when my brother got married, we took Little to the zoo for the first time and he still talks about it.  So we knew when we planned a trip to Greensboro, NC a couple of weekends ago for my brother-in-law’s wedding that we also wanted to stop somewhere for Little.

He is still all about animals so after a little bit of research, we found the Greensboro Science Center.  It’s a lovely place to explore complete with a small zoo, petting farm, and aquarium.  It was the perfect spot to take our animal loving boy for the afternoon.

The Greensboro Science Center

This was our first trip to the Greensboro Science Center and it will hopefully not be our last.  The two-story science center houses  several exhibits featuring prehistoric animals (with a live komodo dragon!), extreme weather, and health along with an aquarium, excellent imaginative play area for young children, and an outdoor zoo with both farm animals and zoo animals.  They’ve even got a great ropes course for older visitors.

It is clear when you visit that the center is committed to creating an excellent family atmosphere that encourages imagination, curiosity, and learning.

Our Trip to the Science Center

We specifically chose to visit the Greensboro Science Center because it seemed so hands-on and had so many animals that we could visit.  When I tell you that Little is into animals these days, I mean he has almost 20 books currently checked out from the library on different animals, and his farm animals and jungle animals are high among his favorite toys to play with each day.  He can tell you at least one animal for every letter of the alphabet as well as a few facts about most of them. So, when we realized that the Greensboro Science Center had a zoo and an aquarium, we were sold.

Greensboro isn’t a far drive for us, but it’s long enough that it can count for Little’s nap if we time if right.  We planned our trip to the Science Center for the Monday after the wedding.  We figured it might be less crowded on a weekday and we could spend several hours there early in the day before driving home.

In all, we spent about three and a half hours at the Greensboro Science Center and split that time between the zoo, play area, and a quick visit through the dinosaur exhibit.  Due to some time constraints (and a second and third visit to the farm animals), we weren’t able to get to the aquarium, but it’s on our list for our next visit!

Friendly Farm

Our first stop was the Friendly Farm located right at the entry to the zoo.  As soon as Little spotted the tractor, he knew there must be a farm so he took off in that direction.

The Friendly Farm was home to goats, sheep, alpacas, peacocks, donkeys, chickens, and a couple of barn owls.  Little loved that the chickens, roosters, and peacocks were able to walk around freely.  He had a blast following them around and asking saying to them, “Hey chickens!  Can you cluck?”

He also loved being able to play inside the pen with the goats and sheep.  The staff was so friendly and helpful – taking time to introduce the different animals to Little and tell him some about the things they liked to do.

The Zoo

From the farm, we continued our walk around the zoo.  I hoped to get great photos of all the animals, but it’s not the easiest to keep up with Little these days, so in an effort to not loose him and to just enjoy our time, I got a great picture of the lemurs.  And another of Little playing on the frogs in the picnic and play area.

Although small, the Greensboro Science Center Zoo has quite a few animals that we loved to see.  It’s an easy walk around zoo that makes a simple loop back to the museum.  We saw howler monkeys and gibbons, wallabies (which Little called “baby kangaroos”), red pandas, a fossa (which I hadn’t heard of before), lemurs, birds, meerkats, and wolves.

My favorites to watch were the meerkats and Little loved to see all the monkeys.  We even got to watch the gibbons being fed which was a treat.  The zookeeper did a great job of introducing us to each of the gibbons, teaching about their diets and habits, and answering questions.

Once we made our way around the zoo, we made one more trip to the farm and then headed inside through the dinosaur exhibit and to the play area.

Sciplay Bay Play Area

This was our final stop at the science center.  We intended to stop by the aquarium, but ended up spending another hour in the play area for younger kids.

Sciplay Bay was beautifully designed with a submarine and ship right outside to play, a food and restaurant shop (pictured above), a fort building area, and an awesome pipe system that allowed the kids to put balls or scarves in and would then blow them through the clear pipes and back out.

They also had a great, safe play space for the little ones under two.

Hubs and I both mentioned that we would love to take the kids back another day to play and explore more at the Greensboro Science Center.  Maybe next time we’ll get to see the aquarium.

(Little is still talking about our trip and reminds us that “we didn’t see the aquarium this time, but maybe later.” so I guess we have to go back.)

In all seriousness though, if you happen to live in or travel to North Carolina, I highly recommend stopping by the Greensboro Science Center.  We had a blast there and will certainly be taking another day trip in the future.

Additional Information

For more information and things to do at the Greensboro Science Center, see here.

For information about visiting Greensboro, NC, see here.

*This post is in no way sponsored by or affiliated with Greensboro Science Center.  All opinions and experiences are my own.