Your Preschooler’s Fall Around Short Pump and Glen Allen

Sweatshirt weather arrives in Short Pump right as the school-year routine finally clicks. The West Broad crowds thin out, the mornings turn crisp, and an outing with a preschooler stops feeling like a project.

Henrico County handles the rest. A working farm in Glen Allen, a nature center full of live animals, an ocean-themed storytime room, a pumpkin field you can walk right into, and almost none of it needs a reservation. Most of it sneaks in learning while your child is busy counting chickens.

Meadow Farm Museum at Crump Park in Glen Allen

Start here. Crump Park is open daily dawn to dusk, it’s free, and the playground is farm-themed right down to the tractor. Trails, a fishing pond, and picnic shelters stretch the morning into lunch.

The real draw for little ones is the animals. Meadow Farm keeps the breeds the Sheppard family raised on this land, including Gulf Coast Native sheep, Jersey cows, Ossabaw Island hogs, Dominique chickens, and Standard Bronze turkeys. You’ll stay outside the pastures, so plan on watching and naming from the fence. That’s plenty for a preschooler. See if your child can find three animals with feathers and three without!

Two fall dates are set for this same park. Glen Allen Day, now in its 30th year, runs Saturday, September 19, with a parade at 9:30 in the morning, a vendor fair until 3, and a big area set aside for children’s activities. Trough or Treat follows on Saturday, October 24 from 2 to 5, when families walk the pastures collecting treats and learning the farm’s history. Costumes are welcome.

Read Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown the night before you go. It walks through one whole day in a barnyard, so the animal sounds are familiar before you park.

Three Lakes Nature Center Is Built for Rainy Fall Days

When the wind picks up or the grass is still soaked, head for the nature center at Three Lakes Park. Inside there are live animal enclosures, displays built for touching and listening, and an exhibit on the giant ice age mammals that once roamed Virginia, fossils included. Staff rotate the exhibits, so it doesn’t go stale after two visits.

If your child gets overwhelmed in busy spaces, the front desk lends sensory bags for free. You leave a photo ID and hand the bag back on your way out.

The nature center is open Thursday through Sunday, 10 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon, through October, then Friday through Sunday in November. The park stays open dawn to dusk with a playground, picnic tables, trails, and lakes you can fish. The outdoor aquarium is under renovation, so save that one for another visit.

Try asking, “Which of these animals is awake right now, and which ones sleep all day?”

Storytime at the Twin Hickory Area Library

The Twin Hickory Area Library in Glen Allen has an ocean-themed children’s area and a storytime room of its own, so the program isn’t squeezed into a corner of the stacks. Read, Play, Grow is the one to look for if you have a 3, 4, or 5-year-old at home. Stories, songs, and activities build the listening and sitting-still muscles kindergarten asks for later.

Room capacity caps the group, so check the library calendar first. Doors are open 9 in the morning to 9 at night Monday through Thursday and 9 to 6 on Friday and Saturday, with Sundays closed. There’s a drive-up window for holds too, a small mercy when nobody wants to get out of the car. On the ride home, see if your child can retell the story in three parts, beginning, middle, and end.

Gallmeyer Farms Opens Its Pumpkin Patch in Late September

Gallmeyer Farms sits on the east side of Henrico, so it’s a drive from Short Pump, and it’s worth it. The Pumpkin Patch opens the last Saturday of September and runs through October 31, 8 in the morning until dusk.

The hayrides, straw bale maze, spooky house tour, and romping pile are all free! You pay for the pumpkins you pick, and they grow from 1 pound to more than 100, a gift for a kid learning about size. Let your child hunt down the smallest pumpkin in the field, then the biggest one they can lift. The farm takes cash, credit, and debit, and pets stay home.

Ready for a Great Fall Around Short Pump?

Every stop on this list runs on a preschooler asking what something is and why it works that way. That curiosity is what we build our days around at Creative World School. Our Exploratorium™ is a hands-on discovery space where children dig into science, art, and the world around them, and our 3 E’s, Education, Exploration, and Enrichment, shape the whole day. We’re bringing all of it to Short Pump and Glen Allen. Learn more and join the waitlist for our newest campus, and keep exploring Henrico with your little one in the meantime!