There was a nice range of fossils for hands-on exploration:

There was also a section with minerals, as well as metals. Here, Daegan lifted the different metals, which were arranged from lightest to heaviest (left-to-right). Having played trumpet since I was a kid, I have to say I was quite surprised at how heavy a solid block of brass was!

The scientists and volunteers there were as friendly and helpful as always. This is the aspect of these shows I enjoy seeing the most: my science-loving kids interacting with mentors and role-models.

Gareth spent quite a bit of time with the microscope (note to self: time to buy one of these for our homeschool!):

And Daegan entered a contest to win a bag of fossils.

A fun way to spend an hour or two. Keep an eye out for their next show—check the library program guides. Or contact them directly, at Calgary Science Network. They do presentations for kids and schools.

I do solemnly swear
On my favourite underwear
That I will take care
Of the costume I am about to wear.

The kids then chose their costumes. Daegan opted to be an elephant, and Gareth a scarlet macaw. (He chose the right colour of shirt to wear to the performance, eh?)

They then spent some time with the actor / actress learning what they needed to do for their role:

They were in the scene set at the city zoo:

Gareth’s job (as a scarlet macaw) was to copy the zookeeper, imitating what she said. He did it perfectly! He illustrated one reason some animals are becoming endangered: illegal pet trade. He came to the zoo after his owner, who received him as a gift at a birthday party, grew bored with him and did not take care of him properly:

Daegan (the elephant) came to the zoo after being hurt when hunted illegally for his ivory tusks. Daegan’s role played to his strengths, as he was required to trumpet (what? my 9-year-old make loud noises? ) and flex his muscles, showing what a strong healthy elephant he’d become with the zoo’s focus on conservation:

After the show the boys got to ask questions of the actors, see how one of the key props worked, go backstage, etc. Many thanks to everyone at Evergreen for today’s wonderful free show, and a special thanks to Jacqueline who teaches the HS drama class for harnessing my kids’ love and enthusiasm for theatre. And for being so understanding of Daegan in particular, who wants/needs to touch everything—props, costumes, sets. In Jacqueline’s words, “That Daegan is a tactile learner.” Yup!

The boys are soooo looking forward to homeschool drama classes starting up again next week. Details are here; there is still space left if you are interested. These have honestly been one of my kids’ favourite classes ever, and at $99 I think they are a superb deal as well. (And for the record, I am in no way affiliated with Evergreen Theatre; my kids just love their programs and as a Mom I’m going to do everything I can to ensure they continue to be offered. If you want to see what the kids ended up performing in last years’ classes to get an idea of what Evergreen offers the HS community, see my blogposts here and here.)

The weirdest thing that happened on this outing—and which unfortunately happened so fast I didn’t get a pic—is I had a muskrat run under my feet! I was sitting on a bench by the Bow River, watching the kids throw rocks and such, and there’s a path connecting where I was to the Jeffries Pond. Out waddles this muskrat—I thought it was a squirrel at first out of the corner of my eye, and then once I saw the long tail I thought, “Eek! Rat!" both of which prevented me from grabbing my camera in time. Before I knew it he’d scooted past me, and dove into the river. I caught the ripple of the splash on my camera…sigh. Too late!

Anyhow, here’s the pictorial highlights of our Thanksgiving (hover your mouse over the pics for details):

After our walk I cooked up our Thanksgiving dinner. It was decadent and delish! We had BBQ chick’n cutlets, twice-baked potatoes, stuffing, ‘shredded brussels sprouts’ (OMG! I finally, after 40-odd years, have found a way to like brussels sprouts!), and chocolate-coconut pie for dessert. Not quite your traditional turkey and pumpkin thing, but we all loved it!

Wishing all my Canadian readers a Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you got to spend time with your friends and family this weekend, doing something that you love.

We began our day with a stop at Horseshoe Canyon a little before Drumheller, in what seemed like gale-force winds. The badlands landscape is always worth the stop, IMO:

After saying hello to the family of ceratopsian statues outside:

We headed straight for the new Alberta Unearthed exhibit. I really enjoyed it. Some of my favourites were the 62-cm (about 25-inches) across ammonite; that’s my iphone in the second pic to give a sense of perspective. The pictures don’t do justice to how iridescent it was. Imagine the shiniest penny ever, with glimmers of green and reds and gold. Simply stunning.

I also liked seeing the ‘Black Beauty’ skeleton. This is a T Rex that has been coloured by the mineral manganese seeping into the bones. One of the most distinctive dino skeleton fossils anywhere:

The kids were surprised at how big some dinosaur’s eggs were:

My very favourite fossil was this almost entirely intact Gorgosaurus:

I’ve never seen a better preserved claw:

And I loved the details about the find on the display board, with the highlighted / captioned sentence: “Nineteen people and two all-terrain vehicles were required to flip this specimen…”

Up next was the ‘Women in Palaeontology’ exhibit along a corridor:

It began with Mary Anning, as you’d expect:

But quickly moved on to unfamiliar (to me, anyways) names, like Englishwoman Mary Ann Woodhouse (wife of Gideon Mantell; she was the finder of the famous iguanadon tooth, as well as illustrator of his books); German Tilly Edinger, founder of palaeoneurology—study of fossil brains; and Canadian-born Karen Chin, the world’s leading expert on coprolites (fossilized poop).

It wasn’t the most kid-friendly (hands-on) part of the museum, but I talked to the boys about this section in great detail over lunch. Led to some interesting discussions about the nature of prejudice, the accuracy of ‘history’, the downplaying of contributions to world culture/knowledge from various groups (women, people of colour, non-Christians), etc. Daegan was so taken by the injustice of it all (‘Why do I know Gideon Mantell’s name, but not his wife?’) he told Jim about this display when we got home. Of course, lunch was also spent on lighter matters, like how to make letters of the alphabet out of french fries.

After lunch we spent some time with hands-on displays:

and even made our own hands-on display. Here’s Gareth using this microscope originally aimed at a mite on a midge trapped in amber to check out his new carnotaurus toy:

One of my favourite hands-on displays shows the role of camouflage in the evolutionary process. It’s simply harder for a predator (Gareth) to catch the camouflaged (red) butterflies among the red flowers, giving them a better chance at reproducing (a mix of yellow, orange, and red butterflies light up):

Total catch:

We also spent quite a bit of time checking out the best submissions to last year’s Prehistoric Arts contest. Daegan wants to enter this year:

This was the overall winner in the upper grades category. Impressive, no?

We then did one last tour of the museum, hitting some of our favourite spots:

Despite being through this museum several times in my life, I find something new every visit. On this trip, I learned why the K-T Boundary—the dividing layer of rock above which dinosaur fossils are not found—has a K in it. Since it divides the Cretaceous from the Tertiary period, shouldn’t it be C-T, not K-T?

And both boys spotted this display, of a tooth coming in in a dinos mouth. No doubt teeth are much on the boys’ minds lately, with Gareth recently losing his first tooth, and Daegan getting his orthodontic palate spacer appliance in on Tuesday:

On the way back to the car, after saying goodbye to the dino statue family:

Daegan found a cricket (grasshopper?), which he shared with Gareth, pointing out its long ovipositor, and beginning to lecture us about how the females use this in fall to lay their eggs deep in the ground to survive the winter. I was reminded once again of Daegan’s on-going dilemma: Should I be a palaeontologist or entomologist when I grow up, Mom?

I really liked how he got the kids making the birdhouses themselves. Over the course of the next hour or so, the boys used a hammer, a saw, a file (to smooth the rough edges) and even a power drill!

Gareth found it easiest when Jim would get the nails started:

The Birdman had boards sawn about halfway for the lids. It was the kids’ jobs—with parental help—to finish the sawing. I think this is the first time either of my kids has used a real saw. They did great; all fingers and toes still accounted for!

Here’s the finished product:

And the boys labelled and decorated it afterwards. Gareth even drew a cardinal:

While there were enough supplies to build one birdhouse per kid, Daegan and Gareth decided out family should just build one joint house—and it’s not like we’re lacking for birding gear in our backyard. This also gave Jim a chance to help two other young boys who were there sans parents; he actually helped build 3 birdhouses that afternoon. “What a guy!” (said in best Red Dwarf voice).

All in all, a wonderful way for our family to participate in Arts Days. Many thanks to Birdman Andrew Stiles, as well as the Calgary Public Library.

The kids then played a relay game to build the biggest pile of leaves. They broke into two teams, where one kid per team ran to the other end of the field to gather leaves, then ran to put them in a pile, and sprinted back to their team to tag the next runner to go. It is such a lovely environment for the kids surrounded by nature, and I like how the emphasis at running club is on fun and cheering on your team:

They soon told everyone to go and gather leaves all at once, in a big pile. Charge!

Once a fair-sized pile was built up, they called all the kids in for the big finale. Everyone pick up a big armful of leaves from the pile…

And…..wheeeeeeeeee!!!!

Needless to say, the kids loved this. So one more time everyone…..wheeeeeee!

The boys love this program. The people running it are friendly and helpful, and have the kids doing proper warm-up, longer runs, games, sprints, and so on. They make good use of the resources in the park, with its different pathways, playgrounds (the kids preferred cool down activity!), and nature. No running that same route over and over again here! No running endless “laps around the track”  (snore!) we all did in highschool. There’s a nice mix of ages and genders among kids and parent volunteers too. And the cost simply can’t be beat: $15 per kid for 6 weeks of running. Awesome!

I am so appreciative of these sorts of community resources that make raising kids and homeschooling that much easier. So what sorts of things do you take advantage of that are on offer in your community?

You arrive at the admission and gift shop building, where they also happened to be nursing an orphaned baby owl back to health behind the front desk:

You follow the red shale paths to see the birds—and the facility is much, much bigger than what I was expecting in a town of about 7000 people.

We were there just after they opened and got to see the eagles getting their water. The mature bald eagle (they also had a juvenile) was none to pleased as the worker approached, but he LOVED the water. He hopped right into the dish and took a bath, and he frolicked in the spray when she sprinkled him directly from the hose. I’ve never seen anything like it!

One of the best features of this centre is that you get to be up close and personal with (some of) the birds, like this barn owl, which both boys got a chance to hold. Daegan was sooooo in his element:

We also got to see a falconry demonstration. Here’s a Harris Hawk (not native to Alberta, but very easy to train) gulping down a dead chick as a reward for returning after his first flight:

After the falconry, we read about how power companies try to avoid conflict with osprey—a bird the boys were quite keen on after we had seen one for the first time on my birthday a few days earlier. In the same area, they had a mock power line and various baffles and deterrents to prevent birds of prey from injuring themselves on them:

We then visited the Natural History Centre on site:

Where Daegan and I both loved the owl wall (Whooooo Am I?). The answer key was found across the room, in a small picture frame:

They also had some hands-on materials by a microscope that the boys examined closely. I quite liked the leaf with all the chlorophyll removed. The boys liked the bones:

We then walked around outside checking out various aviaries:

My favourite was the Ferruginous Hawk, which I had never seen in real life before:

Quite an impressive facility given its humble beginnings, and the fact it receives no government funding. I feel it justified my splurging in the gift shop. The boys picked out a small toy each, and I found them some very cool T-shirts as well. I also found a lovely tea mug with birds painted on, and showed the boys. “Who do you think this is for?” I asked. “Hmmm…it’s got tea, and birds….YOU!” they both giggled.

On our way out the boys got to hold a burrowing owl. Gareth in particular enjoyed holding a bird scaled to his size:

We’ll be back!

The boys put the model together this morning, and while it was fiddly in places, as these sorts of items tend to be, Daegan totally enjoyed himself. And thank goodness he was there; the instructions would say things like “insert the femur here” and I’m looking at the jumble of bone pieces going, “which one is the femur?” Here’s some pics of the process:

Today was the first day we’d seen the female in a while; perhaps the eggs have hatched? I’ll be listening closely for chirps from the nesting box.

And we had gazillions of deer in the backyard over the winter, looking for food, bedding down for the night, sparring with one another to lead the herd, or just being curious:

In the DVD series, various folks make changes to their yard / land to become “backyard wildlife certified” by the National Wildlife Federation. We learn how easy it is to attract local wildlife, by providing food (natural sources, like berry bushes for birds), water, shelter, and a place to raise young. Some of the shows have been more relevant to us than others—unlike the woman in Virginia with the large rural property, we’re not in a position to attract beavers or wood ducks—though we’ve seen both species in our local Bird Sanctuary in the heart of the city.  We’ve watched six titles: Chickadees and Toads, City Birds, Salamanders and Squirrels, Deer, The Beaver and the Wood Duck, and Ladybugs and Painted Lady Butterflies. These are the ones our library has, but there are several others in the series; perhaps your library will carry more of them. Hope it helps you get more enjoyment from your local wildlife.

The boys were FULLY engaged, though it proved quite difficult at first to get the pellet apart:

Then they remembered a DVD about food chains (library has it) we watched recently

in which an owl pellet was soaked in water first to soften it for easier dissection.

Smile for the camera boys—not a chance!

Gareth found their first very large bone, part of a rodent jaw:

There was quite the spread of bones and dirt when they were done:

We soaked all the bones in a mild bleach solution, as suggested:

And then started assembling the rodent skeleton. Here’s Gareth point to his favourite piece we found, a rodent skull:

Here’s a close-up of the skull, where you can see the large incisors (top) as well as the smaller teeth embedded in the skull:

Daegan stuck at assembling the skeleton long after Gareth’s interest had waned. He told me it was “good practice for being a palaeontologist.”

Here’s the finished product, with the skull, jaws (mandibles), some vertebrae, ribs, and arm and leg bones:

My only advice to you if you do a similar project? Do it right AFTER lunch, rather than before. Clearing the table of rodent bits and scrubbing and scrubbing my hands still left me feeling rather squeamish all through our meal.