Yesterday we took our classroom to the beach for some up close and personal learning about sea life. I've mentioned the Marine Biology class Judah and Tilly are taking. Well, thankfully I managed to wrangle Syndi and Carolynn into having their children take it too. Syndi and Carolynn live only five minutes from the beach and spend lots of time there in the summer. Having friends in the class means plenty of field trips together.
The purpose of this particular trip was to use our underwater viewer. It is a large plastic tube with glass in the bottom and a couple of handles. It was really neat. I can't wait to use it in the summer when we can actually comfortably step into the water and look a little deeper.
I loved seeing Tilly and Taylor exclaim over a huge snail they found. It wasn't visible from the surface of the water, but apparently quite impressive in the underwater viewer.
Tilly with limpets.
Carolynn holding…um, I don't know what. Carolynn, Syndi, could you help me out? What is this?
Of of the highlights of the day was finding a dead, eaten seagull. Just as exciting was the dead seal discovered further down the beach. Click on over to my children's blog to read Tilly's perspective on the day.
Ben holding…something. Once again Carolynn and Syndi, can you help me out?
Once we were too cold and several of my children too wet to stay on the beach anymore, we headed to my house. We moms couldn't help it if there just happens to be a coffee shop at this beach, selling eggnog lattes. At my house we fixed hot chocolate for the children and had a wonderful time of visiting together.
*For those of you asking- I blogged about my children's names in response to the same question. Click here and here if you are interested in hearing their names, what they mean and how we chose them.*
I’m so glad you told us about this class. We are having so much fun with it and had lots of fun yesterday. Thank you!
I think the algae that Carolynn is holding is called Beauty Bush (Callithamnion pikeanum)
Ben is holding the Holdfast of some Bull Kelp.
I guess I need to be fast to beat Syndi to answer your questions. Great photos! Thanks for such a fun time! The algae that I am holding is also a red algae~ more difficult to find in this area.
I’ve been out of the blog world for a couple weeks. I just had time to peek and catch up a bit … I love your blog. *sigh* Question: do you photoshop your pictures at all? Or are they always straight off your camera. And … what’s a speed light? Or was it called something else? You mentioned it a while back.
Well, I thought someone else would ask it, but they didn’t, so I will: where’d you get the nifty underwater viewer? Looks like fun – I just LOVE hands on learning!