A new approach to the zoo

Sometimes I run across the idea that 'nature' is found in conservation areas, parks and wildlife refuges. I prefer to think of nature as being everywhere, and encompassing almost everything that is not concrete, steel, or plastic. And if you happen to be a weed growing in a crack in the concrete, you count as nature too. So a visit to the zoo certainly counts as a nature walk in my book.

We are fortunate to live fairly close to a world class zoo. We have had a zoo family membership every since Nuthatch was 6 months old. At first, of course, it was just somewhere that I could go for a nice walk and get out of the house for a little while. He seemed to appreciate the large aquariums and the fresh air, but that was about it.

Now that the children are a little older I have been thinking of ways to enhance our zoo experience. I have tried to get them to choose one animal on each visit, watch it for a little while, and then tell me about what they saw. They did slow down to observe the animals for a little bit, but I still felt that there was something more we could be doing.

A friend of mine pointed out to me that the zoo has information for school groups that can be downloaded for free. The information turned out to be very good, and gave me some fresh ideas for things we could do at the zoo.

So, on our last visit to the zoo, instead of choosing one animal to look at, I asked the kids to choose a body part. They picked 'eyes'. As we went around the zoo, we looked at each animal's eyes. Did their eyes face forward, or were they on the side of the animal's head? Were they large or small? Was there anything special about the animal's eyes?

We noticed that animals that were mainly predators had eyes that faced forwards, where animals that were prey tended to have eyes facing to the side. The camels had long eyelashes and hair around their eyes, probably to protect them from sand and sun. The flying squirrel had large eyes because it is nocturnal. And the jellyfish had no eyes at all!

It gave a new dimension to our visit. We started looking at why the animals had specific adaptations that helped them to live in their particular environment. On our next visit we can choose a different body part, or we could continue looking at eyes but walk through a different section of the zoo. We could also choose a habitat type, and search for animals that live in the desert, or in water, or in the forest and look for similarities and differences in those animals.

If you have a zoo nearby, and you would like a little inspiration for your next visit, check out the following links to some of the education departments from a few zoos around the world. I'm not a fan of fill in the blank worksheets, but these sites might give you some ideas of concepts to explore with your kids.

Toronto Zoo

Smithsonian National Zoological Park

Melbourne Zoo

Singapore Zoo (go to the section titled 'Programmes for All Ages' and then 'Activity Sheets for Visitors'. There is some interesting activities on elephants and white tigers)

Links to other zoos around the world

Garden flowers

Echinacea, purple coneflower

Bee on a Daylily

Rudebekia

Rudebekia

Different bee on coneflower

Storytelling on our nature walk

When I was in Banff in April I had the opportunity to take lots of nature walks. On these walks I started thinking about the 'stories' that nature had to tell, and I started wondering how I could use stories to share the experience of nature with my children. It would be easy enough to make up a little story about the squirrel tracks in the snow,

or the mountain crocus pushing its way through the snow to be the first flower in the spring,

or how the mountains came to be, with their majestic lines showing the layers and layers of sediment pushed up from deep within the earth.

I came home and we quickly got back into the routine of life and I forgot about the nature stories.

This week I was reminded again from a number of sources that I should try out this idea of making up my own nature story. I recently got a few books from the library about storytelling. Basically, your story needs a main character, and that character has a problem. They have a few adventures trying to solve the problem and then the problem is solved.

So, on our walk today I gave it a shot. We walked by a small pine tree and I began to make up a story about a pine seed. The little pine seed wanted to grow into a big pine tree like its mother, but it was trapped inside a pine cone. It couldn't get out, because the cone was closed too tightly. Winter covered it with snow. In the spring the rain washed it into a river and it was carried downstream. Finally it washed up on shore. Then a squirrel carried it high, high up into a tree. He began peeling back the sections and eating the seeds inside. He was just about to eat the little pine seed when he was startled and dropped it on the ground. The little seed sprouted, grew roots and became a tiny pine tree. Soon it grew into the small pine tree we had passed by, and one day it hoped to become as big as its mother.

The kids loved the story, and were begging me for more, but I thought one story per walk would be more than enough.

It is tempting to stuff my kids full of endless nature facts, but telling a simple story seemed to resonate with them on a different level. I enjoyed it as well, pausing in places and letting them fill in parts of the story as we went along. No one knew quite where the story would take us as we walked along the shady path.

Halfway through summer

We're almost at the halfway point in summer. Much to my horror I have realized that my little ones have been out riding their bikes about 3 times this year. Also to my horror, is the fact that my 6 year old cannot ride his bike without training wheels. I had a similar moment in March where I realized we had not been tobogganing yet, despite having the snowiest winter ever.

I'm not sure what age kids typically learn to ride their bikes without training wheels, but every now and then we see a little kid who is certainly not much more than 4 years old, whizzing by on his bike.

So, I set out to remedy this situation. The Nuthatch, however, was not particularly interested in figuring out how to ride his bike. He would try for a few minutes and give up. So, contrary to all my parenting instincts I offered to give him a dime for every time he rode up and down a section of our street.

Money is his current obsession. He is collecting a small pile of change on his bunk bed, not so he can buy anything in particular, but just for the sake of collecting it. There have been many learning opportunities with this particular interest, unlike his previous obsession with pizza. We have learned how to make change, all about the different coins, and about the security features on the bills.

He perked right up when I mentioned giving him money, as I sunk into despair at the thought of paying my child to ride his bike and the precedent I was setting for future parenting isssues. He was greatly motivated however and has improved immensely in the past few days.

After the bike riding he scurried upstairs with his dimes, and returned with ten of them to convert into a dollar. And then he scurried back upstairs with his dollar and returned with two of them to exchange for a two dollar coin. There was more scurrying and he reappeared with five dollars in coins asking for a 5 dollar bill. I didn't know he had quite that much money squirreled away up there.

Adventures in camping

There has been a cyclical discussion going on between my husband and I for the last few years. It goes something like this:

Person A: "We should buy a tent trailer."

Person B: "Where will we put it?"

Person A: "Ok, maybe we should buy a cottage."

Person B: "Egads! Look how much they cost. We don't have that kind of money."

Person A: "Maybe we should just camp in our tent. I think we need a car carrier for the roof of the van to hold all of the stuff."

Person B: "Maybe we should buy a tent trailer."

Well, a few weeks ago, we finally ended the discussion and bought ourselves a tent trailer. We managed to stuff it into our garage somehow. We suspected that it would take us an hour to squish it in there every time, but the first time my amazing husband parked it in about 10 minutes. We thought that might have been a fluke, but he did it again the following weekend and has now earned the title of "Grand Parking Master".

Our first camping trip went very well. I had a week to pack everything we needed. The weather was good. We had a nice campsite. We swam. We hiked. We got along great.

We were so excited by our initial success that we resolved to go again the following weekend. We decided to go somewhere else, to a campground we had fond memories of visiting 10 years ago.

The day before we were set to depart we checked the weather. Rain, rain, and then more rain. And then we checked our route. We thought it was going to be a 3 hour drive, but it was really a 4 hour drive. We decided not to go.

The next morning I took the kids to a museum since there were thundershowers in the forecast. As we drove there we looked at the beautiful, cloudless blue sky. We had a terrible time at the museum and then came home, as the sun still shone on a perfect summer day. At about 2 pm my husband calls me and says, "Let's go camping! Can you pack in 2 hours?"

So, I packed up all our stuff. When you pack on the spur of the moment like that you know you will forget things. You just hope they aren't too important. Like the Chickadee's shoes, for example. Or Bluejay's size 6 diapers.

Somewhere along the drive I realized that the Chickadee had no shoes, so we stopped at a Walmart before heading off into the wilderness. We did not realize the lack of size 6 diapers until we reached the campsite, so I stuffed him into Chickadee's size 4 diapers when he went to bed. That didn't work so well, as we discovered the wet spot the next morning.

When we arrived at our campsite, we wondered where our fond memories of this place came from. I think we were newlyweds, and the rose-coloured glasses we looked at each other with were also used to view the rest of the world. Our campsite was about 2 feet away from the campsite next to us. We set up the trailer in the dark and the rain and went to sleep.

The next day there was rain. Rain, rain, and then more rain. We drove around and saw a few sights. The forecast for the next two days was rain. Rain, rain, and then more rain. We decided to give up and go home. We packed up the trailer and drove home in the rain. Of course, when we got home we were greeted with beautiful sunshine the next day, but we won't think about that too much.

So, this is all I have to show from that trip. A very, very dirty car. Sigh.