Ft. Worth Zoo

After being cooped up in the house due to weather. We got out the first day we could. Ray and I surprised the kids by taking a trip to the Ft. Worth Zoo. None of the kids have ever been to this zoo, so it was quite a treat! And we've been studying big cats so a trip to the zoo was very appropriate.

Samara loves pink so of course she loved the pink flamingo. We saw several of them napping. They were each standing on one leg with their head tucked under their wing. We tried standing that way but determined we would never be able to sleep that way, let alone stay that way for over a minute. We also thought it was funny that their knees bend backward.

Then we saw the gorilla. He looked us in the eye! But I felt sorry for him. He looked like he wanted to get away from all the people staring at him.

Here's a pic of Samara and the lion. He was really active despite the fact that we just learned that lions sleep up to 20 hours a day. He did a lot of roaring! Really cool.

We were all horrified to see that this rhino was eating his own poop!

Here's some pics of the kids climbing on African Termite Mounds.

Trent was able to climb up on the tallest one.


This orangutan was so interactive. Every time someone would walk by with food in their hands she would reach out to them as if she were asking for a bite.

Everyone was excited to see the cheetah, since we recently learned they can run up to 70 mph. Cheetahs are the fastest land animal. After we learned this fact in our homeschool, we wanted to see how fast we could run so we headed to the track with our stopwatch. We ran one lap and timed it. Then (assuming that we would be able to keep up that same pace for the remaining 3 laps) we multiplied our time for 1 lap x 4. Then we divided by 60 minutes. Here are our times:

Isaiah 10.5 mph

Malachi 9.5 mph

Samara 7.1 mph

Seth 0 mph (Seth decided not to finish any laps. He was coming in last so he turned around and walked back to me with tears in his eyes. My poor baby!)

None of the kangaroos were up and hopping. They were all relaxing for a nap in the sun.

Isaiah and Malachi on a komodo dragon:

Samara and Seth on a komodo dragon:

Let's see: who can look the coolest sitting in this rocking chair?

I wanted to take a picture of Seth sitting on this crocodile but he was way too concerned about this girl "who wouldn't move" so he could sit at the front!

I finally got some of the kids in the picture. But the girl is still there!

This is the only picture I got of the bear. There were actually 2 bears in the habitat. The really cool part was that the zoo staff came by to feed the bears while we were there. They have this little tunnel that's shaped like a hollow log and they put food in there to draw the bear to the tunnel. Small kids can climb inside one side of the tunnel to see the bear up close. (Don't worry, there's a cage in the middle of the tunnel to prevent your child from becoming the bear food!) That was really cool.

Up close with a mountain lion! We just watched a show on tv about a man who was attacked by a mountain lion. Scary!

Look at the size of those paws!

Here's the jaguar. He was pacing back and forth looking into the cage next to him which held the coyotes. Isn't he beautiful?

Next we saw the peregine falcon. It was awesome because she wasn't in a cage. She was being held by a zookeeper who was able to answer all out questions about her species. Peregrine falcons are the fastest animal on the planet. When they are diving they can go up to 200 mph!

The zookeeper held her on a special glove to keep his hands protected from her talons. He said she only weighs about 2.5 lbs.

Isaiah's "wingspan" is the size of a barn owl.

By this time we were getting tired. So we all loaded up on the train to ride back to the zoo entrance. We could see this longhorn from our position on the train.

ALL ABOARD!

I've been reading a book by Rebecca Rupp called "Getting Started on Home Learning, How and Why to Teach Your Kids at Home". She is an unschooler and suggests that parents keep journals of what is going on in the homeschool in order to clearly see what is being learned. I've enjoyed reading samples of her journal so I think I'll try to be more detailed in our homeschool journey through my blog.



Wednesday was a lovely day, despite being a bit cloudy, so we decided to get out of the house. Ray invited our friends Tina and Shawn to go on our little outing with us. And of course Trent tagged along. Nehemiah was at school.



So we started out by driving up to the Carrollton Transit Center to catch the bus downtown. We rode together in the back of the bus...all 9 of us. Isaiah pointed out that this must be what it's like in an RV, except there would be beds, a kitchen, a couch, etc. How observant! (It was kinda hard to imagine an RV while we are looking at rows of occupied seats.) When we arrived downtown we caught the DART train to Plano. Here's a picture of the kids on the train.

When we got off in Plano, we were all starved. We saw a small burger joint across the street called "Ye Ole Butcher Shop" so we headed over. The kids and Trent waited outside at the outdoor picnic table, while Ray and I went in to order. There were some Plano officers inside the restaurant who had just finished eating and as they walked out, they stopped by to talk with my kids and give them some "Jr Officer" stickers. Seth has his hand over his sticker and Samara's head is blocking Isaiah's.
We took the food back across the street to the park and had a lovely picnic. The hamburger was delicious. The kids played for almost an hour at the park. Here's a picture of Samara, Malachi, and Seth sitting on a large horse that was between the train station and the playground.


Isaiah wanted to take a picture by himself on the horse. He amazed me at how he can use his body to imitate anything he wants to. Doesn't he look like he's racing that horse?
We also went to the Interurban Railway Museum that is located near the playground. It's a small museum that's housed in a building that served as a primary stop on the Texas Electric Railway that ran from Denison to Dallas beginning in 1908. It stopped running in 1948. We were the only guests and the guides were excited to have us. They gave us an individual tour. First we looked at the model train exhibit. The kids were facinated with the small scale of everything there. Seth loved the pond with the man fishing. Isaiah wanted to know if the "water" in the model was made of glass. Malachi spotted a model man lying on his back in the grass looking up at the sky. This was something that even our guide had never noticed before. Then we moved on to another model train exhibit that had actual moving trains. The trains had lights on them and the windmill was turning. We watched this for a while as the kids asked more questions and pointed out their favorite parts. Then we moved on to a life size model of an engineer and it had sound, you could hear the engineer talking but he didn't move. Then the guide enlisted the help of the kids to press the buttons to light up a large replica of a train motor. The guide explained how it worked. Then he allowed us to make our own electricity by turning a crank that provided electricity to a light bulb. We talked about what it would be like if we had to stand around and turn that crank everytime we turned on a light at home. We also held some railroad ties and talked about what a big nail it has to be in order to hold down the rails. Finally, the guide took us outside to tour a real train that used to stop at this railroad station. We learned that the tracks went through a lot of countryside since Dallas wasn't near as built up at that time. The front of the train had a "cowpusher" on it, that removed anything off the tracks that might be in the way. The back of the train was a mail sorting and delivery area used by the United States Post Office. The front of the train was used for passengers. Above the passenger seats were several antique ads. The guide asked the kids to see if they could recognize them. Malachi recognized "Heinz" as ketchup, even though the ad was for Heinz vinegar. Each of the kids took turns sitting in the engineer's seat. Samara climbed on one of the antique passenger seats that were roped off and not to be sat on. She didn't understand why she couldn't sit on it. It looked similar to the seat she sat on while on the DART train! Malachi was laughing when we learned that the bathroom on the train had no holding tank. When one flushed it, the toilet opened up and dropped the waste on the tracks!

We thanked the guide for our tour and headed off to catch our train ride home. We were all tired by the time we boarded the bus and every one of us dozed off before we arrived home.

Homeschooling - Week 1

We have completed week one! It is so much fun.
Reading/Phonics: short vowel sounds
Math: one to one correspondence/counting
Writing: Practice writing vowels
History: Genesis, Beginning of Time, Creation
Science: None yet!
Art/Music: Painted with apple halves, made "Apple Jack" necklaces, painted white igloos on black paper
Lots of reading together and individually "reading" books.
Malachi has spent hours building ships out of Legos.
Isaiah drew up football plays after studying a book about John Madden and the history of football.

I am getting to know my kids in ways I didn't think was possible. I mean, I thought I knew them and spent a lot of time with them. But this is different. Isaiah is very precise and is a perfectionist. Malachi tends to take care of the twins. He offers to share his supplies with them. Malachi is quite good at coloring too!

Well, hopefully I won't take so long to write before next time.