Learning About Scorpions & Snakes on Our Field Trip

We woke up and got ready early this morning because we were headed on a field trip to the Ecotarium again.


We headed out for our field trip where we were meeting my sister and nephews again.

 I arrived a bit early and boy was that ever perfect. While the building was not yet opened the otters had just been fed and we got to see them.


 They typically are asleep most days during the winter but today they were running around and sliding on the ice, they playfully came right over to us.


It's like they came right over to say "hi!"
 We explored the entire Ecotarium from top to bottom, inside and out. We participated in two different animal encounters and learned all about snakes (in particular corn snakes) and scorpions (mostly the emperor scorpion). It was really neat to see the scorpion glow green with a U.V light!

 We watched them feed the parrot and clean the cage, we saw the turtles being fed, and watched the bald eagles eat.


 We played with fog, wind, and looked at beach sand under a microscope.

 They put on a puppet show, played games like checkers, chess, and Nine Man's Morris.


Category 1 hurricane

Hockey table game

Evan and I were adding while playing a game similar to this!


Feeding plants our carbon dioxide

making dinosaur tracks

The corn snake

Ian practicing how to handle a fake snake

Eek! Alec's snake is venomous "red to yellow kill a fellow, red to black venom lack"--
he even taught that to the man presenting!

A turtle eating an animal (who knew turtles were omnivores?)



The red fox

Scorpion demonstration


All the kids crowd around


Using a U. V light scorpions give off a green glow
It was such a fun day of learning!  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Favorite TV Shows Growing Up in the 80's and early 90's

Image
Do you remember the TGIF lineups on Friday nights? I can remember planning sleepovers and time with friends around TV Show lineups of our favorite shows... or else trying to set the VCR to record our favorite shows if we weren't going to be home. And through the years I had SO MANY favorites! Growing pains aired in 1985 which put me around age 8 and it stayed on the air until I was 15 or so; I'm pretty sure most people in my age group watched mostly for Kirk Cameron and all his antics.  I still have a soft spot for family sit-coms!  The Facts of Life aired when I was just 2  and stayed on the air until I was 11 so I'm sure the episodes I remember so fondly were either some of the later ones and then reruns shown later on when I was old enough to watch from the beginning. I think everyone would have loved an Edna Garret in their lives.   Benson another sitcom that began airing when I was just 2 and was done by the time I was 9 (another one I must have watched mai...
Read more

Old Fort Niagara

Image
After we had stopped by our rental house and changed into dry clothes after our wet morning at the falls we headed out to Old Fort Niagara.   We stopped a local restaurant: The Youngstown Galley and had an amazing lunch!  Youngstown was so cute and I wished we had had more time to explore it but we knew the fort was only open until 5!  We arrived at the fort around 3 and we were just in time for a short video presentation about the history of the fort.  After the movie there was a volunteer guide that offered to lead us around the fort and tell us more about it; we were thrilled!   We learned that this flag was part of the original flag that hung at the fort.  It has been captured, brought to Europe and displayed in the family home of the leader of the battle.  Passed down from generation to generation it was nearly lost and destroyed in a fire!  It was eventually returned to the fort and those pieces that look ...
Read more

Things That Make Me Laugh

Image
I loved the challenge of this week's list for our 26 lists link up.  I don't know about you but I really need to laugh more lately.  It's such a great stress reliever. 1.  Books-- I love a good funny book that makes me laugh out loud.  I haven't read one in a while but if you have any recommendations I'm all ears.  The last book I can remember making me laugh was the Un-Honeymooners. 2  The boys being silly. 3.  Watching shows like America's Funniest Videos or Family Feud. 4. My husband.  Most people don't realize it but he's actually pretty funny and often makes me laugh. 5.  Whenever my sisters/ family get together and we get to reminiscing (particularly if my Aunt Elaine is around) we end up laughing so hard at all the old family stories that we are all in tears by the end of the night.  It's fabulous. 6. Movies like Mom's Night Out, Christmas Vacation, and Grown Ups make me laugh out loud. 7.  When my ...
Read more

January Monthly Musings-- Winter Self Care

Image
 It's the last Thursday of the month and time for Monthly Musings with Holly and Patty. This month we're looking at winter self-care. I feel like I have really failed in the winter self-care department this year as I have been very lazy and uninterested in doing much of my usual.  1. To stay warm in winter I've been wearing lots of warm layers, hardly leaving the house at all, using lots of throw blankets, and hanging out in our basement in front of the woodstove.  2. This winter my two favorite activities have been reading and puzzle making!  I've been "reading" more cookbooks too! 3. The only different beauty routine I have in the winter is that I use a lot more body lotion; especially after showering since my skin gets so dry and itchy. 4. If I had to pick one I'd say sledding but I haven't done any of these in years-- I broke my leg skiing in the 4th grade and never wanted to give it another try.  I don't think I've tried ice skating since ...
Read more

Favorite Outing of the Month: Learning More About Vincent Van Gogh

Image
 I bought tickets for the boys (Alec and Evan) and I to head into Worcester and see the immersive Van Gogh experience at the last minute. I had only recently heard that this was available in Worcester and thought it might be fun to do over the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.  I originally booked our tickets for Monday but switched it to Sunday when I saw that we were forecasted to get quite a bot of snow Sunday into Monday. We headed out at 9 on Sunday morning and both the city and the museum were pleasantly empty feeling.  The first room we turned into had this 3-d sculpture of Van Gogh's head that kept changing colors and patters and was surrounded by lots of story boards about his life, his family. and his art history.  The next room was filled with reproductions of some of his paintings. We learned even more about Van Gogh and his life. Now I have never been the biggest Van Gogh fan but I did take an awful lot of art history classes and focused on many of th...
Read more