Environmental Classes

We are taking some environmental classes for homeschoolers at a local park every Tuesday and we're really enjoying them! Sadly, they are coming to a close and come January we'll be doing these Tuesday classes at the local zoo. I know the boys will really like that, but I will miss this beautiful park we meet at now. It's right on the bay and has tall, gorgeous palm trees that just sway in the breeze as you sit under them. Plus, sometimes, manatees make their way from the bay into the area right beside the park and you can nearly touch them. Really cool! Anyway, here are some miscellaneous pictures of some of the classes.

This is the skeleton of a certain kind of whale, which escapes me now, but it was so neat to see it so close up. And, of course, they got to touch it, which was really neat, too.

This is Mr. Elias with Levi. He's the assistant teacher in our group and Levi's buddy. He follows Mr. Elias around all the time! lol

This day we were learning about whales (I think it was the same day as the skeleton.) and how their blubber helps keep them warm. They had the kids put on a rubber glove and then they covered the glove with crisco shortening and then put on a second glove over the shortening. This insulated their hand.

Here's Levi with his insulated hand.

Then the kids had to put their hands in ice water and see if the insulated hand kept warmer than the non-insulated hand. It was a great idea!

Then, they gave us the job of building a whale skeleton like the one inside, using any natural materials we could find, like sticks, leaves, etc. Here, Indy gets help from our main teacher, Mrs. Yoelly. We love Mrs. Yoelly; she's a lot of fun!

I think this whole 5 week session was about marine animals because the next week we learned about squids and octopi. Towards the end of class we got to dissect a little squid. Levi had his own and Indy worked with his friend, Jacob. It was sooo interesting! I learned a lot about squid that day!

Here's Levi poking his squid trying to count his tentacles.

Here's Indy using a magnifying glass to get a closer look at some of the parts we took out.

After awhile, Levi was just playing with the poor squid.

We used a microscope to look closely at the parts we took out. Really neat!

This is the boys on the main path through the park. See the bay way in the background? And, the beautiful palm trees? It's a really nice place and I know I'll miss going there each week. :-(