Can you believe that we are already at Z in our ABC Blogging? It seems to have just zipped past!
This week’s letter was an easy one – ZOO. We love our zoo and we go fairly often. Truthfully, we tend to go more in the spring and fall. So, it is the time of year that we go more regularly. We went last weekend with Kidz Club. This is what our church calls the kids that are 6th grade and younger. We had a blast! And, best of all, the kids grew closer together as a family. I love to see them growing as friends and family and this picture of E with one of her friends just makes my heart smile and sing.
We all have our favorites at the zoo and when you have an opportunity to see or do something different, your experience is enhanced. Well, this is what happened for us during this visit. We were treated to some very special experiences.
Baby Orangutan
Our zoo has a fairly new baby orangutan. Batari was born May 17. When we arrived at the Asian Forest exhibit, Batari and her mother Mei had just been given their breakfast and were sitting down to open their bag to eat. The kids got a lot of enjoyment watching baby Batari climbing over Mei and up the fence, trying to get at the food. We spent quite a while just observing. KJ, Batari’s daddy, was also out in the exhibit eating his breakfast. We watched him for a bit, as well.
Mukah’s Football Picks
The other male orangutan at the Cameron Park Zoo has a weekly job during football season. Mukah picks the winners for the upcoming weekend. Each Saturday, he makes his choices for the next week and they are published in the local paper. We were allowed to watch Mukah and his keeper Olga working together. Olga explained to the kids that they had to be really quiet and allow her to concentrate since Mukah has the strength on 9 (yes 9!!!) professional football players. She could get hurt easily if she doesn’t pay close attention. We watched Mukah go through his picks and then Olga talked to the kids a bit about orangutans, their habitat in the wild, their abilities, and what they do at the zoo to help them. She also allowed the kids to ask questions. We learned a lot and enjoyed that experience.
Giraffe Feeding
When we got to the exhibit that the giraffes are part of, the zoo had a booth set up to allow the kids to feed the giraffes (with payment and supervision, of course). Since they were low on food and the kids have a generous youth minister, he paid for one and they let any of the kids that wanted a turn to feed the giraffes. This was a great experience for the kids and it made J’s day! She got to feed Penny! Giraffes are her favorite animals ever and she got to feed one! One of the guys helping with the feeding was talking with us and we learned a bit more about giraffes.
Feeding Shore Birds
Another really neat thing that the girls and other kids from church got to do at the zoo was to feed the shore birds. The zoo had cups of fish available to purchase to feed the seagulls, pelicans, and other shore birds. The fish were a few inches long and dead but they still smelled! The girls had fun tossing the fish to the birds and watching the pelicans scoop them out of the water with their beaks.
Petting A Whistling Duck
When we were about to leave the area where the shore birds were, a keeper came up with a duck on her arm. Yep, really. On her arm. And the duck was whistling. That is seriously what the duck sounded like! It was a beautiful brown color and it was just whistling away. She allowed the kids to pet it and talked about its habitat a bit. The girls thought petting the whistling duck was neat.
These were the unique experiences that the girls don’t have every time. But there is one thing that we just cannot visit the zoo without doing:
The Otter Slide!
The otter slide is a clear slide that the kids can go down. It goes through the water of the river otter exhibit. If the otters are in a playful mood, and they were Saturday, then they will swim over and around the slide while the kids are sliding down. It is always a lot of fun but we have to limit how long we stay or the giggly girls will stay there sliding all day long!
As always, we had lots of fun at the zoo. We’ll visit again soon and see what else we can learn about the animals that we come in contact with there. At Home.
Posts in this series:
A – apprentice
B – bread
C – convention, curriculum, and companions
D – donuts
E – experiments
F – fresh fruit popsicles
G – Giraffe
H – Hueco Indians
I – in the rain
J – J’s jewel box
K – kids craft box
L – learning together
M – manners
N – night heron
O – only you
P – planning
Q – quit
R – reading
S – searching for sauropods
T – talking about mammoths
U – unbelievably sweet princess slumber party
V – victory
W – what’s inside
X – xylophone
Y – yummy
Z – zoo
This post is linking up with ABC Blogging hosted by Benandme.com.
Tagged: ABC blogging, animals, field trips, science
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