Animalia

We went to the Safari Park with our home school co-op last week.  To prepare we talked about some of the animals we would see there and did some paintings.  I love to see my kids paint, but its one of those messy things, so I have to really psych myself up for it.  It's always worth it.  I let them use my good watercolors this time, which worked out just fine. 

I drew the shapes of some animals very simply, and also a scale version of L next to the animal.  I puled up images of the animals on google, and we talked about their colors and markings to help her paint.  She didn't feel the need to be super literal, and I was okay with that.  :)  It was nice to be able to talk about our paintings when we saw the animals at the park. 




First, the emu - which was my favorite.  :)  They had a lovely blue shimmer on their necks, which doesn't really show up in this picture.  There were tons of them at the Safari Park, often poking their heads in our window.



L liked the Giraffe, and it was pretty fun to watch her paint him.  It was fun to see the scale of him in real life, and his purple tongue was pretty exotic.

J painted with us, too.  She's working on her colors now, and this turned out to be a fun way to talk about them.  She was very opposed to having her picture made for some reason.

And I just can't say enough about the Safari Park experience.  It was crazy fun watching the girls react to each animal.  At  the end of our visit, we drove through the park in our own car, and the girls sat in the front with the window down.  All three of us squealed when a longhorn bull stuck his head in our window, and we gt to touch the noses of a dozen other animals.  It was just amazing to be so close to all of these beautiful beasts.  It's the kind of experience that needs to be repeated.