Zoo Keeping: Week 2

Marching into April, my wife and I continue to try to provide Maslow's hiearchy of needs to our children while engaging in psychological warfare. Week 2 of home education provided the following academic and zoological kabooms.

A chameleon's tongue mimics the action of a bow and arrow. This color changing reptile is an expert tree hunter using its launching tongue as a weapon, surprise attacking bugs. The smallest chameleon is so tiny it can sit on the head of a match and is called the leaf chameleon. Leaf chameleons are also pyromaniacs. 

The king cobra snake will eat a mongoose. A mongoose will eat a king cobra. They are both predator and prey to each other. My girls and I watched a Youtube showdown of this nature combat. With sports being indefinitely postponed, it was nice to watch some competition. I will not reveal who won. Our family won, that's for sure. 

The blue whale is ridiculously big. A newborn blue whale average 3 tons and can stretch up to 25 feet long. Imagine the size of the epidural that whale doctors have to use during pregnancy. I almost passed out when I was introduced to the epidural hours before my first daughter was born. Keyword - almost. 

My firstborn was 7 pounds even. That is 5,993 pounds less than your average baby blue whale. 

On our school day that concentrated on wolves, we all took turns on our balcony howling. There is nothing like a wolf howl into the sunshine. Typically, wolves howl at the moon but these days are far from typical. So, we howled at the biggest star in the sky. We may have alarmed a few neighbors, but they will get over it. Social distance howls are recommended by Dr. Mother Nature. 

Friday concluded with a zany lesson on snails and slugs. We made slugbots (slugs morphed into robots) and had a TV show called "Snailed It" where we made snails out of Playdough. All sorts of animals try to eat banana slugs, probably because they are full of potassium. We watched a Youtube video where a snake and a raccoon each take a shot at a banana slug lunch. One succeeds. One does not. Sticky suspense. 

Each day is a blessing. Fill it with learning and laughter. To conclude Friday school, my 3-year-old stated, "We are real teamagers."

God help us all.

Next week - BEAR week!