Around the World in 1 Day!!

Field Trip :)

We started our week of fun field trips with one of our favorite places-- the Zoo!!  Sure, it's fun just to look at the animals and ride the carousel, but there is so much to learn at the zoo.  Since this was a special trip to commemorate finishing our year-long journey around the world, we really focused on WHERE the animals came from.  We checked the informational signs at each enclosure and we were able to check off every continent!!  I was so proud that the kids were even able to tell me some of the homelands without looking and my 6 year old could name the continents by shape.  We have ALL learned so much this year!


Here are some snapshots of the day and an animal we found from each continent-


Here is one of the Magellenic penguins found in the most southern parts of South America and Antarctica.

Of course, the beautiful giraffes from Africa!  It's hard to tell from the picture but this is a baby giraffe born about 1 1/2 months ago.  The SF Zoo also has an amazing Lemur exhibit, and we know that lemurs only live in Madagascar, an island off the coast of Africa.







They were all snuggled up because this is San Francisco in the summer, which can be foggy :)

You can't talk about Australia without mentioning Kangaroos but have you ever seen a Cassowary?? 

 

They look like something from the dinosaur era! They are also found in Papua New Guinea.

South America is represented by the Alpaca we found in the petting zoo and the beautiful flamingoes. 




I love flamingoes!  I got into a little debate with an 8 year old over whether or not flamingoes could fly.  FYI- they can :)

 



The kids found a very tame camel from Asia- just kidding it's a sculpture of a one-humped Dromedary camel. They are found in the Middle East which is considered Asia, but also found in Africa.  The 2-humped Bactrian Camel is found in other parts of Asia. 



The beautiful snow leopard can also be found in Asia.  Did you know that it has the softest fur of any animal?  The chinchilla has the second softest.



For North America, we visited the always adorable prairie dogs! 







They even got to pretend to BE prairie dogs :)






The zoo also has a great Grizzly Bear exhibit!  These bears are so beautiful but I sure wouldn't want to come across one in the wild!!




This polar bear can be found in both North America, Northern Europe and Russia, so we are using it as our representative from Europe.  This is one BIG animal!!





This super fluffy owl is a Eurasian Owl.  It is so beautiful and soft but the claws are crazy-long!!







That's our trip around the world in one day!!  Want a fun way to teach your kids about the animals and areas of the world?  Print out a map of the world, head to the closest zoo and check off as many continents as you can.  If you check off all the continents treat yourselves to something fun!!