Dolphins and Whales!

Over the past 2 weeks we have completed 2 Download N Go studies.  First we did Dolphin Days, followed by Whale Tales. Emma was so excited to learn about dolphins. She had been asking for a while to start on the dolphin study.  We learned a lot about dolphins and whales that we did not know.

On the last day of Pizza Party, I went to the library to pick up the books I had ordered for our Dolphin study.  The minute I got home the kids were digging into the books.  One of the nice features of Download N Go is the extensive list of books that you get.  None are necessary, but they are wonderful to add.

checking out the dolphin books

Some of the books from our dolphin study

I also ordered Flipper season 1 at the library and the kids loved it!  I had never watched Flipper before. It's a fun old fashioned family show.  We'll be getting that out again. 

This week we worked on Whale Tales. Download N Go studies are designed to take 5 days but we did this one in 4.  Since Monday was a holiday we didn't start until Tuesday.  On Thursday afternoon we had some free time so we did an extra day's work so we could finish today and start something new on Monday.

If I had it to do again I would not have done the two studies so close together. It was OK but I think we would have enjoyed it more if we had chosen to separate them by at least a few weeks.

I didn't take a lot of pictures for these units because we didn't bake anything or do any experiments.  We did have an opportunity to go the aquarium.  We have a family membership and have been many times over the years.  They have a large outdoor exhibit of beluga whales.  We didn't much time with the whales because shortly after we arrived it started to rain ("Hurricane Earl").  I did take a few pictures at the aquarium though.

Beluga in the outdoor exhibit

people interacting with Belugas

Beluga whales

Ryan touching rays

Ellie, Jenna, Connor, Emma and Katie 

At the sea lion show

The sea lion show

At the tiger shark touch pool.

The kids finished off the week by watching 2 episodes of Reading Rainbow that I had picked up at Job Lot for $2 this summer when I saw it. One was a about a humpback whale and the other about a manatee.  I had hoped to squeeze in a visit to the Mystic Seaport but we didn't get to it.  Hopefully we will go soon.  They have some whaling exhibits and demonstrations that I think would be interesting.

Next week we start Autumn Treasures and I can't wait.....I already have a big stack of books and everything is printed and ready to go!  Be looking for a new Download N Go review in about 2 weeks.