Experiencing Big Cats at the Zoo

As previously explained in another post, Christopher is highly interested in two things, Cats and the color red. Our study of Big Cats from reading books was only enhanced at the zoo. I was so excited that we got this opportunity and so was Christopher. The most exciting part was that the animals were awake and Christopher got to see that these "Big Cats" are real. At the zoo, there was a male and a female lion awake as well. I could tell that Christopher was quite excited.

In order to engage my children's interests even more, I decided to create a bingo game for them to help them in the area of literacy. My bingo game included several animals on it that I knew they would be seeing. I then allowed them to write in several animals that they hoped to see and thought that they may see. In addition, on the bottom I left some space for them to write interesting things that they may learn about the animals. It was fun to see Christopher ask me how to spell some of the names of animals but also I was excited to see that he knew how to spell many of the names already and wrote them in himself.



As we entered the zoo, the children began to ask me if they could go see some of the animals listed on their bingo card. They were quite excited when we came to the elephants for that was the first animal that they could cross off.


One of the funnest things was Andrew was really convinced that he would be able to see a Meerkat. He became so excited when he finally saw one and was able to cross it off.


It was amazing to me how they stayed interested for five hours at the zoo and never once said that they were too tired or wanted to go home or that they had seen enough animals. They stayed attentive through the whole zoo and in the end both got to say "Bingo".