It is more than a little disconcerting to turn the corner at the zoo and come face to face with this…
I couldn’t help but think of Jurassic Park movies and wonder… in whose world does this seem like a good idea?! Well, Bug thought it was totally cool and basically wanted to pet all the dinosaurs. The girls preferred to stay in the safety of the wagon.
The girls enjoyed digging for bones. And they all enjoyed getting a chance to use the remote controlled dinosaur… which of course Bug now wants.
There were a couple stations set up too with additional items of interest. And while listening to Bug interact with one of the guides my husband and I were given a clear example of why standard testing is a far from a reliable means of judging a child’s understanding of a topic. Bug got every dinosaur question she answer correct and filled in with probably more info than she knew (seriously that kid knows more about dinosaurs than I do) but when she tried to get him to compare the Omeisaurus that was set up behind us with a long necked animal that could be found in the zoo today he couldn’t come up with the word giraffe (to be fair he actually had never seen a giraffe before – this is our first year with a zoo pass and we had only done indoor exhibits previously). He did list several other sauropods… heck dinosaurs were in the zoo today, weren’t they. She final fed him the answer and he still looked confused. The context didn’t make sense to him at all. My hubby declared as we headed on that the boy was going to see a giraffe today!
Standing in front of the giraffes Daddy tried to make the connection for Bug with what the lady had been asking in the Dino exhibit. Bug stared at him with his pensive look, the one in which we can actually see the wheels in his head turning. Finally, it clicked and the recognition was there on his face followed by annoyance. "Oh… you meant a MAMMAL long neck." Like, well duh. Why didn’t you just ask the right question? In the Zoo was hardly a usable connection for him… Mammal, Africa, heck a cast member in Madagascar would have given him a true reference point.
At the beginning of the week we went on a Field Trip to the zoo with Daddy, Liz and Kyle. The amphibians and reptiles were by far the biggest hits… although this may be due mostly to the fact that their buildings were so nice and toasty warm. It was maybe 40 degrees out, misty and very, very windy. We spent the majority of our time in the reptile house watching the nesting crocodiles which was cool… although that building is the creepiest place in the world if you ask me. I am not a fan of snakes due in a large part I assume to a traumatic experience I had at Bush Gardens when I was about 3yr… some silly zoo keeper put a giant snake on my shoulder after I told him I didn’t want to touch it and then got mad when I threw it to the ground… UGG! Anyway, we had a fun time and will be going back soon to appreciate some of the outdoor inhabitants.
