The Milwaukee County Zoo offers great education classes for kids as young as 2. Each class focuses on an animal or group of animals and includes art projects, stories, songs, and usually a trip to see the animal and talk with the zookeepers. Sometimes we wonder if the parents or kids enjoy them more. Chris and I have to take turns going - we enjoy them so much!
Today I took Katherine to "Bunnies" while Maggie tackled "Otters, Turtles and Bears, Oh My!" (at age 5 you can choose to go without a parent.) We all had a great time - despite the weather!
Katherine's class allowed her to use shaving cream finger paint, lots of glue, more paint, and plenty of stickers to make a bunny costume and
a few other bunny projects.. "Tag" the bunny came to the classroom for a petting session, and she got a bunny snack (bunnies eat sticks in the winter, snack was pretzel sticks.) She's been hopping all day - and went to bed asking when she could go to zoo school again!
Maggie's class focused on life at the river. They talked about River Otters sliding down mud slides and catching fish in their mouths
(Maggie's most intriguing fact of the day,) bears that catch fish in the river, and beavers who build houses in the water - and the houses stay DRY! She made an Otter mask and a large fish - that she could "catch" as an otter. But her favorite part was going to the small mammal building to see the otters in action. She was able to see the otters being fed, as well as swimming and playing in their tank. She was very excited to tell me that the 2 otters at the zoo (Oscar and Buddy) are brothers- just like she and Katherine are sisters. But she agreed that I should not try to feed them fish or make them swim for their food!
Katherine's class is an hour shorter than Maggie's - so we took a stroll through the foggy, cold zoo. Not surprisingly, we saw only a handful of visitors. For the most part it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. We spent the most time in the Monkey house. "MJ and Mahal" the mother/son orangutans put on a great show for us! Mahal was climbing and swinging all over his cage, taunting his mother and obviously playing with her. Katherine thought this was HYSTERICAL! She was shouting to Mahal and trying to get him to go higher or lower, really thinking he was listening to her! Then, the zookeeper came out and gave them their morning treats - apples and pears and some other foods. Katherine was in heaven - she was eating HER snack and Mahal was eating HIS snack! I asked her if SHE could climb and swing like Mahal, "NO Mommy, cuz I am not a monkey!" But, a moment later she piped up, "But if I WAS a monkey - I would be a great swinger!"
All in all it was really fun, and the added bonus was the girls were so tired, that they both took great naps! And so did Mommy!
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