Queens Zoo

I lived in NYC most of my life, and have been a member of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the city zoos and aquarium, for years as well, but up until this month, I had never set foot in the Queens Zoo. (That probably has something to do with the fact that people from Brooklyn, like me, tend to view Queens as a strange planet. The street naming scheme, which includes avenues, streets, places and roads all bearing the same numerical designations, makes a Brooklynite cringe... Anyway...)

Well, I have to say, it was very much worth the trip. Queens Zoo is unique among the city's wildlife parks in its emphasis on the animals of North and South America. It was fascinating to watch mountain lions romping and engaging in playful hunt-like behavior, and the Andean bears were quite amusing. Mikro especially enjoyed the aviary, and the Pudu, the petite deer. (And yes, before we left, all three of us were under the strange compulsion to make a Bantha Pudu remark... Cross generational geekiness at its finest...)





























And speaking of Sci Fi references, there is of course, this nearby landmark, featured in Men in Black:

Happy Groundhog Day!

Our local NYC groundhog, Staten Island Chuck, did not see his shadow and predicts an early spring! So does the more famous Punxsutawney Phil. So happy I could kiss a Marmota monax. (Did you know they are closely related to squirrels?) Yes, I know it's mere superstition, but I'll live with the potentially false hope. So.sick.of.snow. This takes the sting out of missing out on going to see Seussical today because of the lousy weather.

Here's a little song I wrote to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot:

I'm a little groundhog, soft and brown
I came outside and looked around
Didn't see my shadow, hip hooray
Maybe this snow will go away!

Here are some Groundhog Day Songs & Poems from Can Teach. And here are some Groundhog Facts from Cornell University, and a really coolGroundhog FAQ from Hog Haven, which includes photos of a groundhog skull.

The video above has some groundhog vocalizations, and you can listen to more on the Hog Haven site.

Enjoy!

Winter Hide & Seek at Beczak

We went to a program on winter survival strategies of Hudson River wildlife at Beczak Environmental Education Center. The kids learned which local critters hibernate, migrate, or are adapted to stay active and survive our cold winters. I'm glad I got a photo of Mikro's craft project, because on the way home, the wind snatched it out of his hands and it landed on the railroad tracks... There were tears, but I promised him we'll make another similar art project later this week.

Feeder Watch Count

We're doing Project Feeder Watch with Cornell Lab of Ornithology for, I think, our third year now. Mikro and I use my car as a bird blind. Here's what we saw today:

Thursday, 2 December 2010
Clear, 41 degrees F, sunny. Moderately windy.
1145-1230.

1 red bellied woodpecker
1 white breasted nuthatch
1 dark eyed junco
6 house sparrows
2 chickadees
1 house finch female
1 american crow

Tuesday Science

Class this week was about zoology. The kids learned about various animals' adaptations, and examined porcupine quills, feathers, bear claws and different animal pelts. They also learned about animal tracks and used rubber stamps to make a "story" (Mikro had a wolf stalking a deer...)



Afterwards we read some science at the library.

Nature, Science, Poetry and Imagination -- A Week of Fun

Mikro enjoyed Beczak Environmental Education Center's Hunt for Hatchlings program, featuring an egg hunt, egg painting, and learning all about different kinds of animals who lay eggs.





He's also enjoying his new series of science classes about space. This week was about the life cycle of a star and different types of galaxies.



We also had a great time at a composting workshop with our homeschool group, at the community garden where the group has a plot. And Mikro and I got to hang out with friends afterwards.



This weekend we celebrated Mikro's birthday. I can't believe my baby is 7!

On Saturday, we went to the opening of the Children's Room at Poets House, and attended a wonderful reading by Mary Ann Hoberman and Linda Winston, from their anthology The Tree That Time Built: A Celebration of Nature, Science and Imagination. They wrote a poem about the Hudson River and its source at Lake Tear of the Clouds with the children who attended the reading. Mikro had great fun, and especially enjoyed the poem about fossils (naturally!) and getting his book signed.









In the Children's Room, he played with an old Royal typewriter, and wrote a poem with one of the volunteers. He also got a little wild and crazy in the reading nook with the huge pillows and stuffed animals, as did the other little boys present. The staff at Poet's House is amazingly tolerant of little boy exuberance... We stayed for the ribbon cutting ceremony (all the kids who wanted to got to take a snip), then ate lunch in Rockefeller Park, where we enjoyed Tom Otterness' The Real World sculpture garden and watched pigeons, before heading uptown to see How to Train Your Dragon, which Mikro loved.

Homeschooling Update

We're still looking at oceans. Here are some resources we've used recently:



Bill Nye Ocean related videos: (Links are to the first of three parts for each topic. You'll find the links to parts 2 and 3 on the first video.)

Ocean Exploration
Oceanography
Ocean Life
Fish
Marine Mammals

My little reptile lover insisted on reading this book (which is mostly amphibians, but has some lovely lizards in it):



And then we watched the Bill Nye videos for reptiles and amphibians...

Reptiles (part 1)
Amphibians (part 1)

We are still reading about prehistoric creatures and dinosaurs (of course!), including this book and its prequel:





He has several more dino books from the library, including the silly picture book Dinotrucks, which he giggles over and reads and rereads to himself.

We've been reading poetry about winter, and weather:



And this beautiful book, with words of wisdom from Chief Seattle, accompanied by gorgeous paintings:



... and continuing the conservation theme, this book, about our planet's water supply:



We've had a fun look at some of our country's 50 states:



And learned a little bit about Chinese New Year:



We picked up a treasure trove of interlibrary loan books on ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. We are having a lot of fun reading the Greek myths, and the first Percy Jackson book, the Lightning Thief (which I have on my Kindle, and read to Mikro during train rides...) We've been listening to the Jim Weiss CDs of Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World: Ancients, and are just starting the parts on Greece. Mikro loves these stories, and is over the moon for the Jim Henson Storyteller DVDs of the Greek Myths and classic fairytales.

We've already read these Egypt books (and my beetle obsessed boy, who wants to be a coleopterist as well as a paleontologist, particularly enjoyed The Scarab's Secret, which is narrated by a beetle.)



We've read about other insects as well. The silkworms reading was inspired by our visit to the Silk Road exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. Quite the contrast between beekeeping and silkworm raising-- the bees are left to do what is natural, with minimal interference, while the silkworms have been selectively bred into creatures who could not survive in the wild.



And we've even worked in a little math reading. He's really enjoying playing Sum Swamp and doing some math with playing cards, a la Dealing With Addition.



Best of all, he enjoys all of it!