Animal Academy- January

This month at animal academy the kids worked with some of the mammals and learned about the mammals with prehensile tails. The main focus of this month was animal enrichment. When animals are kept in captivity they could get bored and making enrichment toys and activities for them makes their lives more interesting.

The kids learn about skunks, kinkajous, white nosed coatis, lemurs, wallaby, bintarongs, foxes and lynx.





There are a variety of toys, foods, scents and materials for the kids to make enrichment items for the animals. They first observe the animal they will make a toy for and then try to make something that will interest that animal.


Oh and it wasn't just us who went to animals class this month, Hayley, Colin and Tristan brought their ferrets (with prior permission).



I was worried that they wouldn't know which ferrets were their own after they visited with the dozen resident ferrets. Hayley was appalled that I didn't think she would know her own ferret! Thankfully no ferrets were confused during the visit.


Another interesting development this month was the fact that a regular rat had bred with a hairless rat and the babies were a mix of furred and almost hairless.

The wallabies have a habit of chewing the walls in their enclosures! Guess they need even more enrichment.


The fox was allowed a visit with one of the owners dogs for his enrichment as he enjoys playing with the dogs.


A box was smeared with all sorts of interesting smells and tastes for the Canadian Lynx.


The skunk enjoyed some food hidden in a box.


Colin made something for the coatis, food hidden in a toilet roll tube wrapped in newspaper that had a variety of scents on it. I think the funny face on Colin is due to the scents on his enrichment toy.


Tristan smeared peppers on a stuffed animal for the coaties, he had noticed that they liked his Webkinz which he brought along so he felt they would love a toy animal of their own. peppers are one of their favorites foods.



Then Hayley had the idea to put the toy in a bag/tunnel.


They covered the animal with shredded paper so the white nosed coati would need to do a little searching for the enticingly scented toy.


Didn't take him long to find the toy and he loved it!

Yet another fun month at the animal academy.

Bugs for breakfast, ski with spongebob, fun mail, fallen snowman

We are having a January thaw. Sadly it's only a one day thaw. All that does is make a persons body confused and hopeful, then when we wake up tomorrow and it's cold again it will be like the weather is laughing, ha ha tricked you!

Anyway....Wednesday was yet another monthly mixed class day. In Mad science class the kids worked with polymers and made some fun slime to bring home. In animals class the theme was Bugs for Breakfast. All the animals this month were bugs or animals that eat bugs. As we are not normally allowed to get near the animals in this class, it was a novelty that the woman let us get up close and take photos of the bugs after the class. I took advantage of that offer since they were an interesting bunch of bugs and creatures.

Tarantula


Scorpions




Millipede


Gecko with food stored in its tail


Odd frog, might have been a tomato frog, I forget!


Toad


So that was Wednesday and a hectic day it was. I still had to work until shortly before we had to leave for class. Trevor wanted to go along to hang out with his friend who also has younger sibs in the classes so there were 4 kids to hurry along in the 10 minutes I had between work and needing to be back on the road to mixed classes. After class we visited with friends and the younger kids had fun sledding and playing Wii while Trevor and his friend played some sort of strategy game on the computer.

I worked 5 days and the house sure suffered (my sanity too!) The kids are doing good about helping out and keeping up with their chores but its not enough it seems. I took Saturday morning for cleaning and at least made a dent in the chaos.

Towards the end of the week we got a fun parcel from our friend Dorothy in England. we opened it on Saturday afternoon and had great fun looking over the contents and looking up some things. Tristan loves, loves, loves the Stonehenge rock rubber eraser.


Sunday was for skiing. What would I do without boys to drag me onto mountain tops?? Nothing like young boys to keep a mother young and slightly frightened :-).


It was character day and although we saw a couple dozen characters such as Nemo, SpongeBob, Bob the Builder, various sports and ski area mascots, we didn't get any photos with the characters. The kids were all about the skiing.


Enjoying a drink break.


It was a nice Sunday except for the fact that my broken toe isn't healed yet and the ski boots did irritate it. That was a pain but also a handy excuse when I fell down, it's my toe I tell you, I AM a good skier.

Monday brought a blink and you'll miss it January thaw. It RAINED instead of snowed. Very odd. This did mean I got an unexpected day off work! Very nice indeed. Not so nice is the fact that we used the last of our firewood today. Not good when you run out of firewood before you run out of winter.
Our poor snow people didn't cope with the 1 day thaw at all.



Poor snowpeople.

Back to normal tomorrow, work, cold, winter, maybe new snowpeople? Maybe they have to wait for the next snow which is predicted for Thursday.

Snow

The LAST Pinewood derby (or is it?)

It's that time of year again, Pinewood Derby Time. This year is special because it's our boys last Pinewood derby, the boys will be too old next year, this is their final year of cub scouts.

From the box the boys get just a block of pinewood, 4 nails for axles, 4 plastic wheels and that's it!




First the boys did a little planning and discussed what they may want to do with their cars this year.



They drew out plans and then the cutting and sanding began.


Tristan is a super sander. Getting the cars nice and smooth can make a difference.



There is a parents and siblings race too, Below is the start of Hayley's car.


Although the cars come with black wheels the boys are allowed to use colored wheels as long as they're BSA approved. Sanding the wheels can help in case there are little bumps from the molds.



Painting comes next.


Then it's race day! Unfortunately I FORGOT MY CAMERA! I should have some pictures coming soon as a friends daughters took a bunch for me. I was so upset to forget my camera though!

The short story is that Tristan was doing awesome. Winning every race he was in. Colin was doing very well but had a couple seconds not all firsts. Sadly in one race Tristan's car jumped the track a little and that gave him a last place putting him way back in the scoring. He never quite regained his lead although by then end he placed in the top ten. Colin's car on the other hand seemed to get faster with every run. Colin found himself in the final 4! It was a nerve wracking time waiting for the final 4 to race 4 times. In the end Colin came in Second! he got a trophy and will race again in the regionals in May. So in fact this was not our last Pinewood derby after all!

Colin and his trophy.


Hayley and her car. She raced in the parents and siblings race and won all her rounds! It's just for fun though no trophy.She patterned her car after the stuffed animal she's holding.


Tristan did very well but he was understandably sad after the race. Hard to be winning and then fall back. hard to see your brother bring home a nice sized trophy. About an hour after taking the photo below (and one even more forlorn looking picture) Tristan saw the photos and said we need to take a new picture of him and his car tomorrow because these didn't look very nice. I think he was starting to feel better about the whole thing.


Colin on the other hand is thrilled, I don't think he expected to do so well. he worked hard on his car though and it paid off. Now we get to do it all again on a bigger scale in May when we go to the regional race!