Science Day

Today was our weekly science class at UGA's botanical gardens. I drop the boys off at 9am (no easy feat) and then Ivey and I scoot off to play at Chick-Fil-A until time to pick them up at 11. Ivey has a great time playing with a little 2 year old girl named Elaine, whose grandfather also brings her there on Wednesday mornings. The two jabber and play, and I sit and relax with a chicken biscuit and my Netbook. Perfect.

This science class is the best thing ever. It was affordable, it's extremely educational, and the boys love it! I pick them up and the van erupts into chatter about the day's activities and lessons. Here's what I learned about today's class:

The day started out with a puppet show. A squirrel worked at a restaurant and served many different animals their meals. The sun helped the squirrel make the food... making plants for other animals to eat. They learned about the kinds of foods that different animals eat.

Next, they made a house for worms. They took lots of torn up paper, dirt, a banana peel, potato scraps and some water... added worms... and they learned how the worms would make fertile soil. Luckily, the worm house stayed at the botanical gardens.

Then, the super duper best thing ever... Addison explains, "When an owl eats a mouse or a bird, he has two tummy parts... It goes to the first tummy part and then some goes to the second tummy part, but the bones and stuff it can't digest gets spit up in an owl pellet." Each student was given an owl pellet and they used magnifying glasses and rulers to inspect and investigate the bones they found inside. I was pretty impressed... When they brought their bones home, they were able to identify the hip bones, the skull, the teeth, bones of the arms and legs, and ribs. (Addison showed me the ribs in his dish and then told me that his ribs were "pretty worn out since Granddaddy gets them all the time.")

After a good hand washing, they had a snack of graham cracker sticks, carrots and Juicy Juice. The watched a short video about how different fruits and vegetables are grown in other locations and the people involved in the growing, picking, sometimes canning and packaging, and transporting of the produce. The teacher taught them about the different ingredients in a candy bar... and how different ingredients originated from different parts of the world. She taught how certain crops began in other regions, but now may now be grown in other places in the world. They told me that there was an island that had coconut trees... and how coconuts dropped from the tree and floated across the ocean to other shores, where coconut trees grew in other places.

I really hope the gardens choose to do another class later on... obviously, we are learning a great deal!