TJ wanted cereal for breakfast. So, guess what LJ wanted for breakfast as well? He was already eating his soy yogurt but immediately moved his bowl and demanded cereal! lol Well, it wasn't too funny at the moment, though. Anyway, the boys like to "read" their cereal boxes. Something they get from me, I guess. lol But when TJ saw LJ's Amazon Frosted Flakes cereal box, he asked me "What is a rainforest, Mommy?" You have to know I got excited about that. Mini-lesson! Who cares what day it is? It's always learning time!
I had to dig through my brain to remember what little facts I remember about the rainforest from the teacher workshops I had gone to. I couldn't go hit the laptop like I usually do since Daddy had taken it with him this weekend. Surprisingly, I remembered terms like canopy and that the rainforest had 4 levels. I can't wait to go the library and borrow some books. I remember the Great Kapok Tree from the workshop, so that book is definitely on my list. We talked briefly about how people cut down trees from the rainforest and how that would destroy many animals' habitats. We touched upon how many (well, not a definitive number) animals and plantlife there are in the rainforest. So many that we have never seen and will never see. And fortunately the cereal box also had information that I was able to read to the boys.
There were also some animals listed and some animal facts on the cereal box - spider monkey, 3 toed sloth (TJ actually remembered this animal as I've talked about it before because it is sooooo slow and he saw it on Diego), harpy eagle, toucan (TJ remembered this bird from the Little People book that he used to make us read all the time!), poison dart frog and the giant anteater (TJ got a kick out of this one. lol) It was fun chatting with TJ about the animals because it sparked associations. The spider monkey made him think of the baboons we used to see at the GA Safari. When talking about the poison dart frog, I reminded him of when I brought him to the Harry Potter book release party and we saw the reptile lady. She had told us that all frogs are poisonous to some extent. Obviously, some more than others. I reminded him how we had to wash our hands if we ever touched a frog. I'm sure we touched upon some other things, like how the wingspan (new word!) of the harpy eagle can be wider than how tall Daddy is. TJ's eyes really widened at that fact. And he thought that it was pretty cool that an anteater can eat up to 30,000 ants a day. Hmmm... we could have used one of those animals a few years back when we had that serious ant problem....
Teachable moments.... Don't you just love them???
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