under the sea

Today the kids' Museum Explorers class (part of their Monday Homeschool Classes) was about sea creatures -- hermit crabs, sea anemones, sea stars, coral, sea snails, sea urchins, lantern fish, and sea horses. J created the sea horse on the left, Zoo Boy the one on the right.

J (in gray) and Zoo Boy (in red) investigate a selection of sea stars. They also got to handle pieces of coral, a dried sea horse, and live hermit crabs.







Ms. Nikki has the class's undivided attention as she shows them treasures from the museum's collections.




The class does an observation of Hermit Crab behavior. (There are two crabs in the center of this circle -- a little hard to see.) The kids note on their record sheets whenever the crabs move, hide, or touch something. These crabs were movers -- most of the recorded observations were of motion.

Ms. Nikki reads from the book "Mr. Seahorse" while the kids work on their sea horse artwork.

On the way home, Zoo Boy was muttering to himself, and I caught segments of the dialog. "...Then the male octopus reaches out with his giant tentacle..." and "...when the dolphin surfaces, it takes a deep breath, then dives to the ocean depths...", all in a very dramatic-sounding documentary type voice. I listened for awhile, and heard J ask him "What's all that from?" Zoo Boy answered, very matter-of-fact,"from my new movie, 'Discovering Sea Creatures" (a movie that exists only in his head -- at least at this point). More proof for my long-standing theory that Zoo Boy is going to grow up to be the next Jacques Cousteau.