Today we went down to a program at the Nature Center. We love our Nature Center and they have wonderful programs for kids plus exhibits about local wildlife and plants. Today's program was about groundhogs. Even though the class was really for kids three to five, Austin sat right next to his brother and paid attention almost the whole time!
Yes, that is a real, stuffed groundhog!
They talked about shadows and what causes shadows, then the kids took turns playing with a groundhog to make a shadow and making the shadow larger and smaller.
After learning about groundhogs, the kids did a groundhog craft.
The groundhog 'pops' out of the ground.
Then we explored the exhibits. We have been here before but not since fall. Austin really loved it today! He ran around from one exhibit to the next pointing at everything. The catfish below swam over to say 'hello'.
This snake had just shed it's skin, very gross!
Gavin really liked this prairie chicken!
When we were done we went to lunch with Dad which is a very special treat!
Last night we got a few inches of snow and school was closed again today. I was going to start a bird unit with the boys on Monday but I figured since we had the afternoon together we might was well start now. We are learning about birds because Austin loves birds and I knew he'd like to do bird crafts with his brother. He has just about worn out our poor bird field guide because he looks at it every day and likes to carry it around and point at different birds. He even knows cardinals, blue jays, geese, ducks, chickens and owls by name! I think he's said Chickadee a few times but it's not super clear so I'm not going to count it for now. For Christmas I made him a little book with common birds that I printed out and laminated then put together with a binder ring - thinking this would save my field guide. He likes to look at this book, but still likes the field guide better. And, since we've had birds coming to eat our birdseed, Gavin has been asking lots of questions about them too so birds will be our theme for the next 6-8 weeks. Today we made bird kites. The boys colored their birds and we tied yarn to the front and when you run around with them they 'fly' behind you!
These are the books we read today.
The knight book obviously has nothing to do with birds but Gavin wanted to read it. We've also spent the last three days at lunch reading a biography of John James Audubon. It was printed in the 1960s and I couldn't find a picture of it. We had read it before but thought we would read it again. I don't know any famous 'bird' people but thought it would be a good introduction to birds.
No comments:
Post a Comment