A Trip to Valleyview Little Animal Farm

by Isabelle

Last week, I had the opportunity to accompany my son's daycare on a field trip to Valleyview Little Animal Farm, located on Fallowfield Road, just off Highway 416. Our visit started with a short slide presentation meant to introduce the kids to the different animals they were about to see. The 2- to 4-year olds seemed to enjoy the presentation, although I think they were raring to go and were a little disappointed to have to sit indoors for a few minutes when they first got there (practically speaking, however, it enabled everyone to use the washroom, which was a really good thing). After the slide presentation, everyone got on a tractor-pulled "train" to tour some of the crops. Because of the time of year, we didn't see much growing yet (corn, soya beans, to name but a few), but the under-4 crowd really enjoyed the ride.

Next, we visited the goats, sheep, and chickens, all in an indoor barn. The kids especially enjoyed feeding the goats themselves:

Then, we toured the outdoor animal enclosures, which included cows, pigs, peacocks, ducks, llamas, and deer. The kids ran relatively quickly through those, because they were anxious to get to the play structures, which I think were the best part of the whole farm. I lost count of all of the different wooden vehicles they had there, but my little guy particularly loved the truck, helicopter, and locomotive.

There was also a large pirate ship playstructure as well as one made up of different indoor and outdoor tunnels - the kids played in those two for a long time.

We ate a picnic lunch while we were there - there is a nice set-up of covered picnic tables for groups, and even some coolers out front for lunch boxes. Including lunch, our visit lasted about 3.5 hours - I thought that was a bit long for the little ones, who were tired of playing (!) before the bus came to pick us up. I would recommend planning a two-hour visit, perhaps with a short snack break halfway through. There is a snackbar on location if you're in a hurry and don't have time to pack a lunch or snack before heading out.

Isabelle is the mom of 3.5 year old Jay and two-month old Rosie. You can also find her at Dr. Peach’s Blog.