October Learning Notes: Week 10

On Sunday, Cecilia went to her zoo class on polar bears and I took Thomas to his zoo class on horses.   He was frustrated it wasn't on tigers, but he had fun. He painted a horse, did puzzles, found apples and carrots in the hay, made his own cardboard hobbyhorse and got to pet Gypsy, an Egyptian Arabian mare. Afterwards, I took him for a carousel ride and then got him a small stuffed tiger at the gift shop and the front paws wrap around anything placed between them. My only criticism of the class is it should have been longer. I've never felt so rushed. I don't know why they think 2 year olds would only want/need 1 hour to do so many activities and enjoy all the puzzles, books and crafts they offer.

Monday I did religion with all the kids. We read the 8th chapter of Matthew and Teresa did the 9th chapter in her religion book. We also prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy together.
On Tuesday we read about Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible in The World's Story and The Story of the World. Then we did the next Zoology lesson on flying reptiles, including pteranodons. Of course the proper way to follow up that lesson was to watch Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III.
On Wednesday we had a field trip to the Texas Roadhouse. The kids got to learn about the restaurant, take a tour of the kitchen, bake bread and bring it home, color and go on a scavenger hunt and then had lunch and bring home a bag of peanuts, all for free!

Thomas has discovered "Hi-Ya!" and the crayons bore the brunt of it.

On Thursday we went to the zoo, particularly to see the bats since we studied them last week. It was really neat to see how much bigger the fruit bats were than the "vampire" bats were, as well as how they fold their wings differently. I was surprised by how many different bats live in our state. We also visited the aviary, the apes, and the reptiles, where Thomas learned the word "cobra" and the snake and him followed each other for a bit. Brigid was a proud "big girl" and insisted on pushing the stroller around half of the zoo.

We also got to see their newest additions: a month old cow calf and a week old giraffe. It is funny how small an animal taller than one's self can seem beside it's parent.

Mr. Daredevil

We also got quite the show from one of the tigers. It was a real treat. When we were at the zoo on Sunday for Thomas' zoo class, he had been disappointed his class was not on tigers. So it was nice we got some extra attention from them on Thursday.




On Friday we went to the Green Meadows Farm and had the extra treat of bringing daddy along.