Zoo Camp

It is no secret that our family really enjoys the Minot Zoo.  It receives criticism from some, and yes it's not a big city zoo, but seriously for Minot, we're impressed.  You can pretty much see the entire zoo in an hour-the perfect amount of time for my two little ones. 

I made sure to sign Theo up for zoo camp as soon as they opened registration.  Last year he was too young, but I heard it filled up immediately.  This year they had several more spots open.  For 2-3 year olds a parent has to accompany them, and it's just 1 hour, on 1 day, but again, Theo loved it!  The topic this year was conservation and we learned all about insects. 

Mason was able to take a long lunch one day so Theo and I were able to go together.  When we arrived, they had coloring sheets and animal magazines for the kids to look through/color.  Theo (of course) chose a picture of a llama, one of his favorite animals at our zoo.  The teacher's name was Mrs. Crystal, and Theo quickly turned to me and said, "Mom, we have a friend Mrs. Crystal who comes to all the parties."  (A woman in our squadron.)  She talked to the kids about insects and the names for their different body parts and what makes an insect, an insect. 

Theo got to go up to the SmartBoard and help count insect legs (they have 6).  The mom in front of me applauded my parenting because when Mrs. Crystal asked Theo to get up on the chair, he immediately sat down and said "we don't stand on chairs." Ha!  Theo's gotten much better with his counting (he can count to about 18) so it was fun to hear him at the front of the class in his quiet little voice.

He then got paired up and had to dig through a tray to find an insect...at first he wasn't too sure, but eventually he found one.  We made a ladybug out of recycled products and then went out to see some animals in our zoo that eat insects.  I told Theo to stay close to the teacher, and boy did he, he often left me way behind and was right on Mrs. Crystal's heels-quite the teacher's pet.

When we got back into our classroom, the kids got juice and animal cookies and received a zoo t-shirt.  They also got to pet a stuffed otter, which Theo thought was pretty "fluffy."  We ended up getting pizza on the way home, and Theo thought Zoo Camp was pretty awesome!