This past weekend we went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC. While there we managed to check out part of the Natural History Museum. What possible better place is there to learn about Earth's history? Naturally we used this as an opportunity to teach some basics. We decided to focus on the the 4 Major eras of Earth's living history Precambrian (not a real era), Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. For each era each child picked one animal to write about. Each Era and animal served as a separate creative assignment during the week. We kept the projects pretty simple with the goal to see how life has evolved over the hundreds of millions of years.
On the way home (about a 3 hour drive with traffic) we had each child reiterate the eras in order as well as spell them. We also talked about how long humans have been on the planet in comparison to the age of the Earth, how long reptiles and dinosaurs roamed, mass extinctions and some basic animal anatomy/physiology. For this trip we focused mostly on how teeth are different among carnivores versus herbivores and how those teeth are used respectively.
It was a very good trip, and for anyone visiting DC, make sure your kids get the full effect. DC can be a science lesson, History lesson, government/civics and almost anything else. It is truly a wonderful place.
Link to Mackenson's Project
Link To Marie's Project
No comments:
Post a Comment