Summer Field Trips Are the Best!

There is a local natural history museum that we really enjoy going to. I’ve mentioned it before. This summer they had some “junior naturalist” programs. We were only able to make one but we had a lot of fun & learned quite a bit.

Today we were learning about wetlands and ponds. We started out in the bird room & discussed the types of birds that lived in or near wetlands.

 

Here they were learning about the blue heron & how they eat. The boys are pretending that the chopsticks are the birds beak & they are attempting to catch it head first. Blue herons eat fish head first only (guess why…). I love the expression on N’s face above! LOL

After birds were discussed some more we headed to the ocean room. While oceans aren’t wetlands the children were encouraged to check out the shells and those that would be found in wetlands (did you know that there are fresh water mollusks and that they are very endangered?).

Finally the children were brought downstairs to the classroom. The lady who teaches these events does very well with the kids. We always have fun.

Here she is passing around a beaver skull. Did you know they have orange front teeth? It’s a special enamel that allows their teeth to stay sharp. They children also felt a beaver pelt – so soft. She even had a beaver hat & discussed how beavers were threatened when that was in style.

After a few more things were passed around the fun started. The teacher had brought in two pans of pond water (since it was pouring buckets outside – the norm these days in Maine it seems). There were all kinds of things for the kids to see & observe – which they did.

There was one final thing the boys were able to do & I missed taking photos. That was the craft portion of the day. Each child was able to make a duck out of pom-poms, felt, and googly eyes. That was fun. The second item was a piece of white form board cut in to diamonds. They were able to stamp a picture of a wetland animal on it (J did a flock of geese & N did a turtle). It had string on it & they would wear it as a necklace or hang it up.

My boys had a great time. I’m hoping they keep these up as we do so enjoy going.