Trick or Treating at the Zoo; A Fun Day of Learning

October 20, 2014

I hadn't planned on doing any book work with the boys today. We were heading out in the morning to meet my mother, my sisters, and their kids at the zoo for some fun trick- or- treating through the zoo.

As soon as we ate breakfast I had them get into their costumes and we went outside in our yard for the annual Halloween pictures I take of the boys in their costumes.

We piled into the car and headed to the zoo. We arrived at 10:30 and met up with our family.

The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins and looking at the animals. Lots of the animals were up close today and the boys had fun telling our family members about the various animals and previous trips we've made.

All the bigger boys playing together

My niece and a little boys that my sister babysits

We heard lots of noisy animals today-- like the gibbons and the lemurs, stopped to watch a lot of entertaining monkeys, and saw a few new animals as well. Alec asked to see the Coati at the Earth Discovery building and we all watched the baby zebra sleeping near his mom.

The kids are all watching the bunny dig a hole in the hay

watching the birds

These monkeys were so entertaining we stayed and watched them for
quite some time!

And these little guys were just darling! They were trying to catch
a fly on the glass and kept coming right up to us.

Getting to meet the new coati

We sat through a creepy crawly show and learned about millipedes, whip scorpions, tarantula's, and the Brazilian Rainbow boa.

It was no surprise to any of us that Alec knew most of the basic information about these creepy crawlies but he really put the presenter on the spot a few times with his questions. When he learned that millipedes are not part of the insect family, Alec wanted to know what species they were part of then and the guy told him he thought they were myriapods but he wasn't positive and assured Alec he could come into the Earth building after the show to find out for sure while he looked it up for him.

Learning about millipedes

We chose to wait until we got home and look it up ourselves. Alec also wanted to know how to tell the difference between male and female millipedes and he wanted to know how long they can grow to; I guess it's time to get some books on millipedes!

Alec knew that tarantula's can "throw" the hairs on their body at predators, that the smaller scorpions are usually more venomous, that scorpions were part of the arachnid family, and that in the wild the boa would eat smaller mammals found on the rainforest floor.

Up close to the whip scorpion

Learning about the rose tarantula

The boa snake

We all agreed he'd make a great docent to the zoo when he gets older! The older boys often pushed the strollers of the younger kids or held their hands while we were walking around. We all tried to get them to talk, wave, and pointed out animals to them.