Week 11: How Animals Adapt to The Cold, Ashanti Culture, Capoeira, and The Museum of Natural History

At our Zoo class this week, our kids learned how some animals use blubber and fur keep warm in cold evironments. They also checked on the progress of their worm farms they made last week, and they set their worms free outside.

Documenting what different feathers look like under a microscope.

Documenting how long they can keep their hands in cold water with different insulation to demonstrate how various animals stay warm.

Observing how hairless animals keep warm by huddling.

Letting their worms go free.

Two of our kids took special care to place one of the worms in a

log so that it would be safe.

As a continuation of our unit on Africa for our Geography/World Culture class, one of our parents taught the kids about Ashanti culture, legends, and textiles.

The kids learned how to wrap their Kente cloths.

They also learned about the story of The Golden Stool.

For Game Day, our kids went on a treasure hunt, looking for "gold."

The kids also played games just to relax and have fun.

For their Capoeira lesson this week, the kids practiced their moves, but they also learned about the importance of the berimbau,

the principle instrument in Capoeria.

For our field trip this week, the kids went to the Museum of Natural History. One of our parents put together a scavenger hunt of things to look for in the museum that are located in Africa; we started in the African Voices exhibit, played for a while in the discovery room, and made our way to the Hall of Origins.

The kids had to find the items on their paperwork and then look at their maps to locate where in Africa the specific region is that we were talking about.

While in the Hall of Origins, our kids had a lesson on skulls from different parts of our evolutionary history in Africa.

We stopped in the Discovery Room so that our kids could do some scientific investigating!

Of course, we also stopped by to see the tarantula and butterflies before leaving the Museum. In the Butterfly Pavilion, our kids were allowed to handle one of the catepillars.

The tarantula was another story--only the handler can hold her. But our kids were allowed to observe close up.