We' re very lucky to have a Wild life Park within 10 minutes of our house, which each year during the quiet season opens up its gates for free, or a minimal donation.
Every year we have dropped in for an hour or so to observe the animals and learn about their habitat and eating habits and we've found that by concentrating on only one or two each time and then just 'enjoying' the others for the sake of it, we have gradually built up a little bit of knowledge each time.
Yesterday ,after an abortive attempt the previous day, my son who has Aspergers and who suffers severe anxiety when venturing out, decided today was the day.
The weather was glorious and that meant that despite it being a school day there were lots of visitors with young children or holiday makers so I wasn't sure if it would work. I have learned to play it by ear.
What I am learning however is that if my son wants to do something then he can overcome all his sensory difficulties and this was one of those days.
The zoo is being expanded and the new additions were the Artic wolves and Snow leopards.The wolves looked majestic as they stood together against the sky line!
Highlight of the day was, I think the white handed Gibbons, which 'whooped' (that's the only way I could describe their cry) to one another as they swung on ropes and balanced on them as though they were sitting on planks a foot wide! We stood and watched the spectacle for a good ten minutes!
The colouring of some of the birds feathers is dazzling and here are just two of the photos we took between us. The lovely thing about home education is that it is constantly cross curricular so as well as learning biology and geography we were doing art too!
The Gophers with their funny stance came up quite close to inspect us.
and the Capybara (this one reminded me of Arthur), when they weren't fast asleep in the sun, had four large toes!
We learned that giraffes have seven bones in their necks (and each has different patterns) and that there is only one species (but seven sub species)
We also saw this Stork which often sits on a lamp post on the by pass next to the zoo!
We had a really lovely day and once again I was reminded how home education has helped my son so much in his development ,it has given him space and time to develop his own coping strategies and I'm thankful for that. They can't be learned in 'social skills lessons' they have to be applied to real life and I have the time and motivation to give him that. We are truly blessed!
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