"To the zoo Tuesday"

There are so many great right-brain dominant learning tools these days!  Check out this tag reader map The girls are so into it that I'm really going to need to get a new tag reader pen thing so both girls can play at the same time..

On the monorail at the zoo today with some homeschooling friends!

We got to see a Serval - wild African cat - at the zoo and learn all about it.  (Special talent is how high it can jump!)

Such great timing with our "cat school" theme and when we got home we read more about servals and talked about why they have shorter tails and longer legs and large ears and so on.

They are the second fastest cat (the Cheetah is the fastest cat of course.) They can run 45 mph and are the best hunters because they catch half of what they hunt for (Lions succeed only 1 out of 5 times.)

Pretty coat. 

We ate lunch with the lions who were snuggled up next to the glass enjoying the coolness by the air conditioned building and shade.

Lily took these pictures and of the lions paw.  She's been enjoying taking different shots with her new camera and telling me what she takes pictures of and where they will go in her alphabet sorting book.  "I took a picture of a plant to go under "P" for plant."  -- that sort of thing.

Sleeping Cheetah.

The baby was taking pictures with her phone (pretend) but saw me with the real camera and wanted a turn.

After dinner we pulled out the new "Cat-opoly" game to play with the girls.  My husband wasn't as impressed with it as it's just a re-make of Monopoly and is very long, but I think it's helpful for the girls to play games like this and have to add the money and so on and there are some fun facts about cats in this game too.  I kind of want to make up our own cat themed board game now though.  Note: the middle child on the right is pretending to act like a cat.. hence the crazy arms and face. 

It's been a full day and guess what?!  Before bed Lily (7) who a few weeks ago was crying because she "hated reading" was actually reading some of a book OUT LOUD before going to sleep!  Amazing what can happen when you take the pressure off a kid and start teaching them in other ways.  We are definitely building a positive atmosphere around learning and reading and school in general now and I think that is great.  :}