Digging Deeper

We went to the Royal Alberta Museum this week with a group of home educators.

We had booklets given to us designed to slow the kids down, to dig a little deeper, to ask questions, to make guesses, and to find answers.

At first the booklets were received with disappointment and distress. But then the boys both got pretty into it.

"This is pretty interesting stuff!" they said.

Toviel was a little overwhelmed, so I spent the majority of my time with him, looking deeper into some of the things he already knew. 

Elijah ended up on his own, and when I found him. He was in the bug room, both totally fascinated and disgusted with the spiders.

Toviel oo-ed and ah-ed over the rocks and minerals. I have an inkling to find some mineral and rock kits to explore. Rocks are really fascinating!

Then on to the dinosaur room, Toviel learned a bit about his favorite dinosaur that is at this particular museum, the drameosaur.

In the Aboriginal exhibit, we talked about the early days of the aboriginal people, mostly about how they survived. Elijah teared up when we discussed how reliant the people were on the bison. It is hard for him to imagine that anyone could hunt and kill such a majestic creature.

Here Toviel is making observations on the Trumpeter Swan diorama, noting differences between them and other swans of Alberta. I learned stuff too. He pointed out that they made a mistake in the diorama. I was confused, but after he explained it, he makes total sense and I agree with him. They have a baby swan in the water, and it looks like that swan is swimming, but the water all around it is completely still. No ripples or little wake. He thinks of things like that a lot....very physics-minded.

We saw a short 20-30 minute presentation on rattlesnakes and it was pretty engaging and interesting.

It was refreshing to me to see my boys slowing down, observing, asking questions and finding delight and satisfaction in it.