Saturday, August 28, 2010

Marine Science Day!!


Today we went to 2 different Marine Science centers which were super cool & educational for the boys. Evan got in both places for free & the cost for us to get in was only 1 dollar!  Anyways, the 1st place we went to is a few feet away from a beautiful, sandy beach. I really loved this location because it has a long sidewalk along the water where there have been many dolphins & manatees seen swimming around. There is also a fun playground for the little ones to enjoy. When we first entered, there was a tank with small animals such as hermit crabs, snails, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, & starfish that the kids could actually touch & hold. We were at that tank for a loooong time. lol I had to pry Evan away from there because he was so fascinated with all of the little sea creatures. There were several fish tanks with beautiful salt water fish, crabs, & starfish, and then the path led to an educational room which has some interactive things for the little ones such as a magnetic board for them to match debris with the length of time it takes it to decompose if thrown into the ocean (I thought that was a great way to teach the kids to keep the oceans clean). There were also little cubbies with the names & a little toy as a example of certain sea creatures such as a seahorse or a humpback whale & there were little laminated squares with velcro on the back for the kids to place on the corresponding pictures. They also had little stations with sea puzzles & coloring sheets of mangroves for the little kids & Evan's favorite.....a tank with all of the real fish that resemble the one's on Finding Nemo! My 2 oldest enjoyed the microscopes they had with live samples for them to examine and a small flat screen TV next to the miscroscopes that displayed what they were looking at in a larger size. The gift shop was pretty neat too. I got these shirts for Evan & Gio which are all white with sea creature designs (Evan got sharks & Gio got sea turtles) and when u go in the sun.....colors magically appear on the shirt! Coolest thing I've ever seen =) Koko got a shark's tooth necklace....I was surprised that the prices were so reasonable. Next, we went to the Manatte Center which was my favorite! It was so perfect for Evan being that we did a unit on Manatees not too long ago. I was shocked to see that he remembered a lot of facts about the Manatees. They had lots of stuff for the kids to explore....Evan's favorite was a sand table full of shells. The coolest thing was seeing how a fisherman outside got a seahorse caught in his net & they put in into one of the saltwater tanks in the center. Evan couldn't stop admiring it =) Here are some pictures....







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