Making Your Stay at the Kalahari Educational

I spent a good deal of time telling you about some of the attractions you will encounter when you visit Wisconsin Dells, but I have yet to tell you about ways to make this trip more educational.

Some of the sites are inherently educational, such as the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory.  Other sites may not seem so obvious when it comes to education – and, even those that are obvious, can be expanded upon further.

Let’s start with the Kalahari Resort.  That’s right, even a resort can present many different educational experiences.

You can kick off the educational aspect of staying in a resort by doing a little math.  For example, you can tell your child how much it costs each night to stay at the Kalahari and ask him or her to determine what the final bill will be.  Don’t forget to add sales tax.  In addition, if you are charging expenses to your room, let your little accountant keep track.  Not only will this help hone math skills, it will also make your child feel like he or she is performing an important duty for the family.

The Kalahari also has an indoor and an outdoor waterpark. The water aspect opens up a whole bunch of different educational opportunities.  When you get back in the hotel room, for example, you can give your child a lump of clay and challenge him or her to find a way to make it float in the bathtub.  Your child will have a great time forming the clay into different shapes and trying to make it float in the water.  Next, challenge your child to put pennies on the clay and see how many pennies can be placed there before the clay sinks.  If you want to make it even more fun, tell your child that he or she can keep all of the pennies that the clay can hold before sinking.

Since there is an outdoor waterpark as well as an indoor waterpark, you can discuss the differences in temperature in the water.  When we were there, the water of the outdoor waterpark was quite cold since it is no in a climate controlled atmosphere.  This can lead to further discussions about oceans and the effects of outside temperature on the water temperature.

With an elephant being the symbol of the Kalahari, you might also explore learning more about elephants.  What does an elephant have to do with the word “Kalahari” anyway?  Try to learn more about the Kalahari desert and the creatures that inhabit it before going to the Dells.  That way, your child will have a much greater appreciation of the decorations at the resort.

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Wisonsin Dells – Photo Gallary 1 – The Kalahari

Here are some photos from my stay at the Kalahari while at Wisconsin Dells.

This is a view of the outdoor water park from the balcony of our room.  This one shows the pools and gives you an idea of what the resort looks like.

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Here, you can get a better idea of what the slides look like at the outdoor park.

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 An elephant is the symbol of the Kalahari resort.  Just outside of the outdoor waterpark is a statue of one that makes for a nice photo opp.

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 My digital doesn’t take the best of photos when indoors, but here is a shot of the indoor play area that the twins spent most of there time at.  One of them is playing peek-a-boo in this one!

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One neat feature of the waterpark is the boogie-board simulator.  Check out the look on my son’s face!  (He was the only one brave enough to give it a try!).

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Wisconsin Dells – The Kalahari Resort

The most recent family vacation that my family and I went on was a trip to Wisconsin Dells.  After having already gone to Disney World earlier this year, we decided to go on a sort of mini-trip to a location that was nearby (unfortunately, my husband doesn’t get much vacation time and I am always using it up with vacations!).  So, since we reside in Indiana, a trip to Wisconsin Dells was only about 5 or 6 hours away.

I had never been to the Dells before and I really didn’t expect much from it.  In fact, I kind of thought that it would be pretty lame – especially after having gone to Disney.  But, we really did enjoy our time there.

Wisconsin Dells is known for its many waterparks.  After having watched a travel channel special and finding that two of its water parks were listed as the top ten in the nation, Noahs Ark and the Kalahari resort, I decided to book a stay at the Kalahari.  The Kahlahari has both an indoor and outdoor water park.  Since we went in early June, it was actually a bit cold to enjoy the outdoor water park.  The indoor water park was a whole lot of fun, though, and there were some great play areas that my five-year-old twins could enjoy without concern for their safety.

Althouogh the rooms at the Kalahari were really nice and the water park was great, my family and I likely won’t stay there again.  The luxury of staying at a resort with a waterpark is quite costly and turned out not to be worth it for us because we only spent time there on two days of our trip – and, the second day was really more because we wanted to feel like we were getting our money’s worth.  If you are planning a trip to the Dells, it might be better to simply plan a stay at a less expensive hotel and save your money for visiting the many sites the Dells has to offer.