SCIENCE WORD OF THE WEEK
Welcome Students to this week’s lesson and the Science Word of the Week!
Today’s word is Adaptation \ˌa-ˌdap-ˈtā-shən, -dəp-\
Adaptation is when an animal or plant has a characteristic that helps them survive in their environment better. Adaptations include things such as camouflage, behavioral traits and the structure of an animal or plant!
Adaptations can be learned or inherited.
Let’s check out some tiger adaptations!
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL HIPPO DAY!!
We’re celebrating one of our favorite mammals today! Come learn some fun facts about hippos and enjoy a hippo coloring sheet!!
Hippos are amazing creatures. We are partial to the pygmy because they are so cute! There are even hippos who surf in the ocean off the coast of Gabon! Pretty cool!
BIRDS OF A FEATHER WEEK- BUILD A NEST!!
It’s the last day of our Birds of Feather Week! Today we’re sharing three birds who are wonderful architects! The males of these species work hard building and decorating nests to attract a female! Whew- it must be hard work!
Male Adelie penguins build nests from rocks. The carefully choose these rocks and if you’re a smart Adelie penguin then you steal the best rocks from your neighbor! Check out this funny video! Cheeky penguin!
Male Hamerkops build nests to improve the lady Hamerkops. The bigger the better is the rule with Hamerkops!
Male house wrens will build up to 12 nests to impress the females. These ladies must be very picky!
Lastly the Bower bird decorates their nests elaborately to attract a female! Maybe they should have their own HGTV show!
We just love the way these birds work to attract their mates! Way to go hard working birds and Happy Valentine’s Day!
BIRDS OF A FEATHER WEEK– Guess the Animal
We are featuring a bird for today’s Birds of Feather Week. This one is in honor of the snow storm that arrived at HQs yesterday!! Plus these birds are amazing parents! Tell us who you think it is.
We live in Antarctica.
We are the largest of our species.
The males take incubate the eggs while the females go to find food.
Who is it?
ELLIE AND EDMOND VALENTINES!
It’s almost Valentine’s Day and we’ve got our color you own Ellie and Edmond Valentine’s just in time to color and share! As always- show us your artwork!
BIRDS OF A FEATHER WEEK- DAY 2
We loved those Birds of Paradise videos so much that we wanted to know if other birds have mating dances! The first bird that came to mind was one of our most favorite birds ever! Come check out these fun mating dances!
First up: The Blue Footed Booby! We have a fun Blue Footed Booby coloring sheet below!
Next up: The moon walking Manakin Bird!
Last up: The Andean Flamingo who does a group dance!
BIRDS OF A FEATHER WEEK!
This week during our travels we’re celebrating Valentine’s week with Birds of a Feather. We’re off to find birds with elaborate mating rituals and those that mate for life. We’re also going to have our popular color your valentine cards! First up- Birds of Paradise. These amazing birds live in the untouched rainforests of Papua New Guinea. They are amazing looking birds come in all colors, shapes and sizes. Birds of Paradise are most famous for their mating dances and rituals which are extremely elaborate and complicated! The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has done some great field work with these birds! We can’t top these videos so we’re posting some of our favorites! Anyone out there want to try their hand at the Bird of Paradise dance?
Project Introduction- Learn about this cool project!
Here’s the Greater Bird of Paradise!
SCIENCE WORD OF THE WEEK!
Welcome students! This week’s class in on a Saturday because Ellie and Edmond are going to see a puppet show about weather and report back tomorrow! Science and weather are so fun to learn about!
Now on to this week’s work: Invertebrate
An Invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. There are more invertebrates than vertebrates on the planet. Invertebrates are cold-blooded. Sometimes they have an exoskeleton, sometimes they don’t. They include insects, cnidarians (jellies, coral), cephalopods (octopus, squid) and sponges. Whew! Those invertebrates sure come in all shapes and sizes! Amazing!! Do you have a favorite invertebrate?
Day #19 (2/7/2014) Heading towards home
We decided to head back to North America after having some trouble with our internet and computer. We set out to spend the day birding. The bird we were looking for lives in North and South America. They live on water, but they’re not ducks. We brought our favorite blanket, some hay snacks, a camera and our binoculars and spent the day watching the Pied Billed Grebe.
Their range and habitat: North America-South America/ lakes, rivers
Their length/weight: 12-15”/9-21 oz Their status: common
They are carnivores. (fish, crayfish, insects)
We had such a lovely day watching these interesting birds. We had to bundle up as cold weather has taken over much of North America. Some populations of pied billed grebes migrate to brackish waters in the winter; we think they should keep flying til they get to the beaches of Central America! Hahaha!
-Ellie and Edmond
Day #18 (2/6/14) – Guess the Animal
We hopefully have fixed our technical difficulties that have plagued us this trip as we have missed two posts! We head to the plains of South America to find today’s guess the animal! This animal is one of our favorites! See if you know who it is!
Who is it?
–Ellie and Edmond
The Adventures of Ellie and Edmond 