Going Blue, Too: We're Going to the Zoo!

This summer, I took a trip to Brookfield Zoo with my grandma, two of my aunts and their kids. This was my first trip to the zoo since this post, and before I left, I printed out a couple of those sheets to bring with. I stapled them to a file folder for durability. Since I rode in with the girls (L and N) I had them color and look at animal facts on the way to the zoo.

We started out by entering the fragile desert, where we saw lots of nocturnal animals. I love seeing how much the kids know, since it was the five year old who gave us that key word, and the older ones who needed it defined. I loved going with these kids because it gave me a chance to use my rusty Roving Naturalist knowledge (not actually that rusty) as we talked about animals with really large ears ("they hear better" - M) and even examined a pretend cattle skull and learned a nifty rhyme.

Eyes on the side, run and hide

Eyes in the front, likes to hunt

We spent a good five minutes by the skull, asking questions about what this animal would eat, and what its called (eyes on the side, its a herbivore). Afterwards, my aunt laughed. "Normally, we would notice the skull, touch it, and be off in ten seconds." Its a true testament to why zoos have education positions, and why they have random educational exhibits. After looking at the skull, we made a point (actually, the five year old made a big point) of noticing which animals had hunter (carnivore) eyes and which ones had hiding eyes.

Not long afterwards, I gave my camera over to the kids. I like to do this for several reasons. It usually gives a very unique perspective. For example, I probably would have taken more pictures of the lions and cheetahs. Instead, I have a good two dozen photos of various herps, which I love, but which I don't often photograph because of the flash. Oh, I have three dozen photos of flash upon plastic/glass as well. But when I remember that M was in charge of the camera, and he's mad about reptiles, this makes a bit more sense.

I also have a lot of photos of our baby cousin T, who was brought to join us halfway through our adventure. L and N are fond of babies. Then again, so am I!

The kids also love taking the photos. They exchanged the camera several times to get shots of their favorite creatures. From this, I learned that N really loved the waterbirds, and L loved the colorful parrots.

But everyone was eager to see the giraffes. As the adults were feeling a bit tired, we made our way over to the African Savannah with some pleasure. The ladies sat down to talk as I explained how to use the ethograms I had been toting around all day. We decided that our subject would be the baby giraffe, Arnieta's calf. I gave a quick description of each of the giraffes, a guide to telling them apart, and let the kids choose the question they wanted to answer. We did one study together, asking who the baby giraffe liked to stay by. We guessed that he would want to stay by mom.