Turkey Hill Experience Review

So…there’s a new attraction that just opened recently about 20 minutes from our house.

It’s called the Turkey Hill Experience. Turkey Hill is a company in our area (Columbia, PA) that sells ice cream, iced tea, lemonade, and such. The Experience is like a hands-on science museum for kids that takes them through the process of making ice cream. Coincidentally, today is also National Ice Cream Cone Day. True story.

Um…Say what? There’s a science-based children’s museum down the road from my house that is focused solely on the process of making ice cream. And my kids are young enough to get in for free? And they give us free ice cream while we’re there? Yes.

For some reason, I’ve heard some negative reviews about this place from other parents, mostly that it was too expensive & kind of boring. I guess if you have 3 or 4 older children, admission would get expensive at $12/ person. But my kids were both 4 & under, so I only had to pay for myself. We went with my friend Chrissy & her little boy, Jack, and they both had a good time as well. I would not say it was boring at all.

Before we went, I had my kids watch the video here, which was over their heads, but they seemed to like anyway. Once we got there, I liked that it was ok for the kids to touch everything.

We each got a free scoop of our choice of flavors. The little ones got vanilla, but Nick, Chrissy & I got a graham cracker, chocolate, marshmallow s’mores-ish flavor named after the Phillies baseball team.

As a former science teacher of gifted children, I was geeking out just a little bit (ok, a lot) over the way that science was incorporated into almost every corner.

Even the ball pit was used to model homogenization.

Although, that would be my one critique: I think there was a slight disconnect between the educational concepts and the age-appropriateness of the attractions. For example, the little ones LOVED the ball bit but couldn’t care less about the homogenization concept it represented. Kids who are old enough to understand that concept (I’m thinking 3rd or 4th grade and up) are too big for this ball pit.

Same thing about the slide that was, if I remember correctly, supposed to represent the machinery used to process & package the ice cream.

But whatever. We still had a great time, even if my kids can’t grasp the higher-level science concepts yet.

(Yes, I’m 6 months pregnant and wearing a shirt that says “bumpalicious.” You are still required to take this review seriously 🙂

They do seem to understand that ice cream is made from milk and milk comes from cows.

We also got to design our own ice cream flavor, its packaging and create & star in our own tv commercial in something they call the Create Your Own | The Turkey Hill Experience. (Click on the link and scroll to the bottom to watch our commercial.) It would have been awesome to be able to taste our own creation if they’d had a Coldstone-style set-up instead of the ready-made cart, but, hey, I’m not going to complain about free ice cream.

Overall, as a mom, I really liked it. I would take my kids back again, probably before Nick turns 5 so he can still get in for free. I like anything that shows kids where their food comes from and anything that gets kids interested in science. Although Chrissy and I both said afterward that, while all of the exhibits were beautiful & well-done, we wished there would have been a few more. We went through pretty quickly, so I’m sure older children would be able to do everything in 40 minutes or less.

As a teacher, I think it would be a great place for a third-grade field trip. Any younger won’t understand the science, and older will be too big for the attractions. I’d say that’s kind of limiting your market. I also think they could easily add more math & science concepts like the idea of physical & chemical changes, pints to gallons, etc.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars for kids ages 9 and under.

On a related note, I spent all morning trying to order a copy of this book. I got it in college & used it in my classroom (so much that it fell apart) when we would talk about liquids changing to solids & make our own ice cream using this ball.

The book is out of print now & Amazon wanted almost $40 for it. I was able to find it for $6 on a religious gifts site (??) here.

So there, next time we go to the Turkey Hill Experience, I’ll be prepared with our bedtime story.

A little background about me, I’m slightly obsessed with finding children’s books that connect to our experiences. We’re going to an apple orchard tomorrow to have our family photos done by a fabulous young photographer you might have seen around blogland before (YAY!!! Can’t wait to share more with you afterward!) and there are no less than 6 books about apples on our living room shelf at the moment…you can’t take the classroom out of the teacher, I guess.

*UPDATE: Since we’ve visited THE, the ticket prices have changed and free admission is only up to age 3. They have also added an experience you can purchase where you do get to make your own ice cream flavors!

Looking for more fun family activities in the Lancaster area? We LOVE Dutch Wonderland and they are very accommodating with special needs. I wrote all about our experience here.

I’ve rounded up my favorite family-friendly activities for the York and Lancaster area and share them all in this post.