Our Trip to the Zoo

[636Jen]

I have to say that I absolutely LOVE my kids' ages right now. Everything is fun, everything is exciting and they are interested in SO much more since I've taken them out of public schooling. Instead of just hurrying through, we took our time and made a lot of stops. At most, it used to take us 3 hours to get through the entire zoo....today we were there for over 5 hours! We observed and didn't rush. The kids asked questions and if I didn't know, we'd find a zoo person / volunteer to help us. We spent 20 minutes alone just watching a male peacock try to "impress the ladies" by spreading his feathers, shaking them and doing a little dance. It was really cool and it's something none of us have ever seen before. This trip was so much fun and so educational that I feel bad about my prior zoo trips with the kids. You know, the ones where we went on field trips with the class and "had to be back by lunch" type of thing. Hurry up and "We'll discuss all your questions when we get back to the classroom."

I was really disappointed to hear what some moms were saying to their kids in the reptile house. When we saw the snakes and lizards, I used words like, interesting, neat, different, awesome, fun, very cool, etc when I talked to the kids. Some of the moms were using words like, disgusting, slimey, gross, horrible and scary to talk about snakes. I mean, even if you DID feel that way, you certainly wouldn't want to project that and keep your kid from learning new things, right? How sad. Sigh....I love homeschooling.

Here are just some things we learned today:

The thing that the butterfly uses to drink nectar or mushy fruit is called a proboscis.....not a tongue, like I had thought.
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Some interesting Otter facts. Did you know that they had a membrane over their eyes so that they could see better under water?
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The female alligator laid from 12-14 eggs and built a nest on top of it to keep it warm. (and was actively protecting it!) Dakota noted that some dinosaurs did the same thing!
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A baby kangaroo is called a Joey and when they are born, they are as small as a bumble bee! Did you know that an adult kangaroo can jump 27 feet? We also learned about the Aboriginies and viewed some of their art.
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A baby Zebra was born recently....and was nursing like all mammals do!
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Here is the peacock that was shaking his stuff for the female peacocks that walked by him....what an awesome display!
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WE LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!!
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Thanks for looking!

[destinybound]

what are your kids ages? i have a two and four year old and our trip to the zoo tomorrow will not be without baby drama

claire

[636Jen]

Originally Posted by destinybound

what are your kids ages?

They are 5, 6 and 7.

Have a great time at the zoo!!

[Needle in the Hay]

What a great trip to the zoo! We love the Detroit Zoo and go almost every time we visit my family.
You might want to get a membership if you live close enough (it covers parking too which makes it even more worth it). My sister has one because she and her DH just love the gorillas and chimps.

Oh and I agree with you about the words people use to describe animals. I understand being a little freaked out by a scary-looking animal, but to dismiss it as gross or horrible really annoys me too! Oh and my sister has told me plenty of awful things she's heard people say about the great apes.

[636Jen]

I got my membership while there yesterday! It includes 4 "free tickets" that I can give to anyone, anytime. (So if my mom wants to come, she can get in free.) Normally, the cost is pretty high to go to the zoo...$11 for me, $7 for each kid and $5 for parking: $37.00!! The price of my year pass plus 4 extra tickets was 89.00. With the membership, I got $1 off at the Saving Wildlife Simulator (saving $4) and 10% off at the gift shop! It has almost paid for itself on the first visit!

[CalaRei]

That sounds like a wonderful day!

Hubby and I went to the zoo with our 4 yo niece, my SIL and my FIL (pap pap). FIL rushed us through everything - pausing just long enough to actually find the animal in its enclosure and then moving on. No discussion, not even waiting for the audio clip to finish telling about the animal we were looking at.

*sigh*

We got through the entire zoo in just over an hour.

[Mom4tot]

That's fabulous! Thanks for sharing