The Bunny Patch Day Care

Our mile markers are installed! Track your distance walked/jogged/ran of the zoo mile with our new mile markers. And join us through the end of August for Wellness Wednesdays, presented by Essentia Health!

Every Wednesday, guests are invited to walk, jog, or run their way to wellness while exploring over 1 mile of scenic zoo trails—a fun and refreshing way to stay active.

Enjoy a peaceful morning before the crowds, move your body and boost your energy, and experience the Zoo in a unique way!

Wednesdays | June – August
Entry: 9:00am – 9:45am
► Always free for Members
► Non-members are free (thanks to Essentia Health!)

Want to help other parents and teachers preserve and protect play? Make learning visible.

Also, peep how all of these domains are activated through one holistic experience. While we're often quick to compartmentalize learning into separate subjects, children's brains don't develop that way. In play, language, math, science, creativity, executive functioning, motor development, and social-emotional skills aren't taught separately, but rather, they develop together. That's how the brain is designed to learn. Because these experiences are meaningful, connected, and intrinsically motivating, children stay engaged longer, build richer neural networks, retain concepts more deeply, and are far more likely to transfer that learning into new situations.

Let the children play. That's how their brains build best. 🧠🌱♥

Healthy childhood includes physical mistakes. If a child never falls, bumps into things, trips, bruises, or scrapes their knees, they're missing opportunities their developing brain and body were designed to have.

Now of course we don't want children to get hurt. We don't push them beyond their capabilities or place them in genuinely hazardous situations. But childhood by and large is meant to include physical mistakes—many, many physical mistakes.

Every stumble, missed step, and scraped knee gives the brain valuable information. Children are calibrating balance, coordination, body awareness, force, depth perception, and judgment. They're discovering what their bodies can do and where their limits are. Those experiences strengthen the neural pathways responsible for movement, risk assessment, and motor planning in ways that simply can't be learned through verbal instruction alone.

And yes, sometimes those mistakes are bigger. A child may need stitches. They may sprain a wrist. They may break a bone. We care for them, help them heal, and, when they're ready, support them in returning to play. Children are incredibly resilient. Cuts heal. Bruises fade. Bones mend. Don't let a temporary injury become a permanent reason to keep children from the very experiences that help them grow. If an adult twists an ankle hiking or falls off a bike, we don't decide they'll never hike or ride again. We recover, we learn, and we keep living. Children deserve the same opportunity.

The consequences of eliminating healthy risk aren't only physical. Research consistently shows that when children have fewer opportunities to engage in developmentally appropriate risky play, they also have fewer opportunities to build confidence in their own abilities, develop accurate risk assessment, and learn that they can recover from manageable challenges. Over time, avoiding uncertainty can teach the nervous system that uncertainty itself is something to fear rather than something that can be explored and mastered, a contributing factor associated with greater anxiety.

The goal isn't to prevent every bump or scrape. It's to provide children with opportunities to test themselves, make manageable mistakes, recover, adapt, and discover just how capable they really are.

Because children don't learn to navigate risk by avoiding it.

They learn to navigate risk by experiencing it.

Motivational Monday-

Join Parks & Recreation and local dragonfly researcher and photographer Nicole Birch from BellSkimmer Studio for another fun day along the water in search of dragonflies and other fascinating river critters!

We’ll stroll the Waabizheshikana along the St. Louis River, watching for these dazzling fliers as they zip, hover, and glide along the shoreline. Along the way, you’ll learn what makes dragonflies so unique, how to identify different species, and the important role they play in our ecosystem. Bring your curiosity, your questions, and your sense of adventure for a fun day of dragonfly chasing along the river! Register on our website: bit.ly/4oQwsoN

Saturday, July 11 from 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Morgan Park: 1242 88th Ave W