My Animal Loving Girl

Posted by Coral on December 27, 2008

For those of you who read my post about Isabella Rose (the horny toad, whom we had to set free); you know we were crazy to think of getting the girls fish. Well we did and R’s fish has already passed on (yes there were plenty of tears this time also). The fish now awaits for her return (in the freezer ) to Wal-mart for a replacement fish. Believe it or not, you really can return anything to Wally World!

My parents got R one of those butterfly habitats for Christmas, at my suggestion. We knew she would enjoy it, because of her love for all living creatures. Plus it would be great as part of our science lessons. However, this morning she was talking about the wonderful pet butterflies she’ll soon have. I then realized that she thought she was going to be able to keep them forever. I had to explain that eventually we will have to set them free . I know you must be thinking that I am trying to torture or at least toughen up my “I don’t want to eat an egg because it used to be a baby chick”,  precious little girl. Really I have done all this without thinking . In the end I do believe it will teach some good lessons (I hope).

R also was quickly attached to a Pink Dolphin that she carried around Toys ‘R Us while we were there. When we had to go and leave it behind, again she cried, “But I love it Mamma!”. So later that night we went back and purchased it as a Christmas present. At least this animal can’t die and doesn’t ever need to be set free .

This was her reaction upon be reunited with her beloved friend on Christmas morning:

Fossil Walk

Posted by Coral on December 27, 2008

The Fossil Walk was a lot of fun. We had to educate the girls before hand on how all these aquatic fossils really got on the very top of the Grand Canyons cliffs. However the ranger was right when she said the whole thing used to be under water, her explanation of how it all happened and where all the water went is what was lacking .  It was awesome for the girls to hunt, find and touch real fossils. Here is the paper that the ranger gave us, so that we could recognize the different ones:

(we stuck this in our Lapbook also)

Here are some of the fossils we found:

(Bryozoan)

(crinoid)

(brachiopod)

Here are a few that we didn’t find but that the ranger showed us:

The ranger helped us identify them correctly. Literally fossils were all around us. Once she showed us what to look for we were amazed at how they were everywhere we looked in this small area of the fossil hunt. We later talked about how fossils are made and what they can show us, a very cool day.

We also did a lot more hiking, here’s some pics:

(people as specks)