Sharks!!

This I think was one of the scariest experiences I have had... The boys of course weren't bothered!

We were in London with relatives and as our party consisted of 6 children of varying ages we thought the London Sealife Aquarium would be a good idea. I knew they had sharks and was quite excited, but we have visited a number of aquariums and the sharks are always of the small, pale, mind-my-own-business variety. Not here!!

The first encounter is when you walk in to the aquarium and have to walk over a glass floor, I didn't spot anything scary so thought no more of it. We then proceeded to have a very nice time indeed as the boys enjoy finding out about all the different types of fish and trying to attract their attention.

Then we walked into the shark reef aquarium and I nearly had a heart attack, my body went into full fight or flight mode when the meanest, biggest, darkest, most equipped with rows of scary teeth, creature came swimming towards us. I completely forgot I was outside the tank and froze, until Reuben shouted: "Mummy are you in shock?"
They loved every minute of it and were absolutely mesmerised by the actually very beautiful animals.
And I apologise for the terrible pictures as I was too scared to go near the glass...

There are sixteen sharks altogether, including the two striking 2.8m brown sharks and a group of 10 sleek black tip reef sharks. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) rates the blacktip reef shark as Near Threatened – overfishing has led to its decline as it is a slow-reproducing species (like all sharks). Young or small blacktip reef sharks often fall prey to larger fish such as groupers, grey reef sharks, tiger sharks or even bigger blacktip reef sharks.
Reuben as usual found all the technical stuff really interesting while Isaac just wants to look and give them a hug!!

Here's other hightlight of the day:

Waiting for the others outside the aquarium
with the fishing game, luckily Reuben
always throws them back!

Winter Dolphin

A while ago we bought a dvd called Dolphin Tale as the boys are big fans of dolphins (and whales), surprisingly this was a great advert for home education as one of the characters is a very happy and motivated home educated girl and the main character is having a lot of trouble at school. And it is the true story of a dolphin that gets tangled in nets and loses her tail, and the children who help her to swim again.

But aside from the home education angle, the boys got a lot out of this film, they found out about dolphins and animal injuries including prosthetic limbs (for humans too), they now know a lot about marine life rescue, they like to look at the aquarium website http://www.seewinter.com where there is a Winter (the name of the dolphin) webcam and just enjoy the story again and again.

The real Winter

London Zoo

Before I had children I was in two minds about visiting zoos, I know that the animals are all born in captivity and they would not be equipped to live in the wild, zoos offer a home for them, but I still felt very uneasy at watching them in the enclosures, especially great apes. I still feel uneasy but I also see how amazed the boys are at seeing the animals in real life, they love to watch animal based cartoons and programmes so it is very exciting for them to see the real thing. We have also visited rescue centres and found out about injured animals and how we can help.

 



So off we went last Sunday and it was certainly a very full day! We managed to see most of it, take part in workshops (see the shadow puppet show in my previous post), have lunch and numerous ice creams and play in the children's fun areas, we didn't try any of the playgrounds but that was just lack of time.

Here are some of the highlights for us:

The Okapi, is it a zebra? A horse? A small giraffe? The boys couldn't decide

The boys enjoyed the play areas set up for children throughout
 the zoo

The big cats, especially the tigers
 

The penguin beach, excellent!
One of the best I've seen
 

The giant Iguana the boys thought was a statue, then it moved!

The butterfly tunnel, it was wonderful, the boys loved the
butterflies flying all around them, I was a bit nervous at
squashing one though...

The bouncy castle!

The aquarium, especially the fish from the Finding Nemo film

It wasn't the cheapest of days out so we had to plan it carefully (we were not staying in London so had to think about trains and local transport too), but all the details can be found on the website http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo

Project Noah

This is a very worthwhile, educational and fun project to get involved in. Share pictures of wildlife and plants to help document our planet's biodiversity.

It works through a smartphone app with linking website and facebook page.
Website http://www.projectnoah.org
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/#!/projectnoah

You can take pictures on your phone then post them to compare with similar ones, to add to the database or for others to help you identify the animal/plant. You can help identify organisms yourself, join missions and help build up a worldwide map.

Animal lovers

My boys, like most children I suppose, are fascinated by animals. My youngest loves them in a cuddly/excited to see them sort of way, and my eldest is more interested in them in a David Attenborough sort of way (what does it eat? Is it poisonous?). Whenever we go to a zoo/rescue centre/nature reserve/farm I am always amazed at how much they know, so I was asking myself: if I have never sat down with them and done an "animal lesson" where did they get all this information from?
You will be surprised to know that a lot comes from a cartoon called Diego!

Not the most accurate of programmes (Diego works in animal rescue despite being about 9 years old, and has rescued creatures like mermaids and dinosaurs...) but when dealing with real animals, my boys soak up all the information like sponges. They know about Lamas, Anacondas and Macaws, they can recognise them when they see them for real and know what they eat and where they originally come from, so thank you Diego!

Next, we must include another cartoon, Octonauts! When we visit aquariums or play in rock pools, the boys are a fountain of knowledge: sharks (especially whale sharks which Isaac is very fond of), seals, crabs, you name it. I think that the Octonauts are involved in more animal rescue, or they are a sort of underwater vets, but the boys are fascinated.

We have a lot of animal based books, but the boys tend to like factual ones more than stories, a favourite is Eye See You, a poster book they can look at while guessing the name of the animal and trying to remember as much as they can about them (a favourite is the red eyed tree frog!)

But of course nothing beats the real life experience: we have tropical fish and chickens at home, we live in the country so farm animals are a common sight, and we very much like to visit animal related places. We have been to zoos here in Leicestershire, London and Rome, endless farms, various Sea Life Centres and Aquariums (the latest being the one in Newquay), the Seal rescue centre in Cornwall (Reuben was very impressed by the hospital) and as many nature reserves and woodland areas as we can fit in. I do feel a little uneasy about the boys seeing so many animals in captivity though and I hope that in the future we can all travel to see them in their natural habitat.

Related websites we like are National Geographic for kids
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids
and the Panda challenge from the Smithsonian National Zoological Park http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Education/ConservationCentral/challenge/default.cfm
but I'm sure there must be 100s!