Joshua Tree National Park, CA

Show Family 2 here, reporting live from California. Today we visited a national park that is named after the Joshua Tree. One of the rangers told us that this is not actually a tree, but is related to the flower the lily.

More information:

Lesson Plans

Teaching with Historic Places
Keys Ranch: Where Time Stood Still
Learn NPS

San Diego Natural History Museum

This is Show Family 2 reporting live from San Diego CA. We are almost all the way to the Mexican border here and we are enjoying the sunny weather. One of the fun things we've done while here is to visit this museum with models of dinosaurs. Are you as fascinated by these wonderful animals as we are? We learned all sorts of interesting things about them.

We also learned more about fossils while here. You can visit some of the links below to see what we did learn here.

Unit Studies/Teaching Guides
After the Dinosaurs: When Crocodiles Ruled
The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Lost World (K-8)
Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight

Puzzles
Dinosaur Word Search
Dinosaur Word Search 2
Jurassic Jumble

Games
Dinosaur Games & Activities (Experiments)
Dino and Fossil Activities


Math
Dinosaur Math
Math Learning Videos

Timeline
Geological Timeline (Printable)

Fun Facts
Paleontology FAQ

Books recommended by the Museum

Pets Rule Show at Sea World

One of the things we did while visiting San Diego, California was to visit Sea World. One of our favorite things we did there was to watch the Pets Rule show. It is a show were pets do tricks. Tricks like jump roping:
Jumping over a pole:
More jump roping:
and cheerleading:
and of course, a favorite trick-catching frisbees:
We think this show is neat because all of the pets they use are animals that have been rescued. We didn't show them here, but they also have pigs and cats in the show. What is your favorite trick out of all of the tricks here? We like the jump rope trick!

Hummingbirds

Show Family 2 here: One of the things we have done this past week, is to get bird feeders to hang outside of our RV. We were hoping to attract different birds so we could see them up close and personal.

The hummingbirds have been some of our favorite visitors:Some facts about the hummingbird:

They are the tiniest birds on the planet. They are famous for more than their beauty and size. They are the only bird that can fly backwards. When they hover in the air, their wings can beat up to 72 times per second!

Hummingbirds hearts beat amazingly fast too. The blue-throated hummingbird's heart beats at 1260 beats per minute. They can fly at a steady speed of about 29 mph.

Hummingbirds are BIG eaters. They can eat twice as much as their body weighs each and every day. That's about the same as if a kid who weighs 50 pounds ate 100 hamburgers a day.

Hummingbirds digest their food really quickly. It only takes about ten minutes for a fruit fly to pass completely through one end to the other of a hummingbird.

How long do these incredible birds live? When kept in a cage and cared for, they have been able to live as long as dogs-about nine to fourteen years.

Coloring Pages with Hummingbirds
Color Your World
Enchanted Learning
Jea
RubyThroat

Games
Online Jigsaw Puzzle

How You Can Help Hummingbirds
Operation Ruby Throat

Montezuma Castle National Monument~Camp Verde, Arizona

One of the things we have been able to do since we have been in Arizona is visit a very old castle that is actually a cliff dwelling.

It is in a National Park and we were able to do fun things to earn ranger badges first:Then we walked down to see the castle. This does not look like any castle that I have ever seen before. How about you?It was built by the Sinagua Indians. There name means without water because they had to farm in an area that doesn't have much water. They built this castle about 900 years ago and left it about 600 years ago.

Here is Abby to tell you what she thinks about it:

Grand Canyon National Park~South Rim

This is Show Family 2 reporting from Arizona. We were able to visit the Grand Canyon National Park the other day!

It is one of the coolest things we have visited so far. It is so huge that you can hardly believe your eyes when looking at it. It is 277 river miles long, up to 18 miles wide and a mile deep. It is one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

Here is Auburn telling you about it:



And here is our dog Ace:



Lesson Plans/Unit Studies
Official Site of Grand Canyon
Activities on how to become a ranger
Lesson plans about TGC from K-12

Books
Hey Ranger!

More information
Lost in the Grand Canyon from PBS
National Geographic

Games
NG presents The Grand Canyon for Kids

Elk at the Grand Canyon National Park

This is Show Family 2 reporting from Arizona. One of the places we have visited while here is the Grand Canyon. We saw some elk while visiting here.

Elk are one of the largest species of deer and one of the largest mammals in North America and eastern Asia. They live in forests or on the edge of forest. They eat grass, plants, leaves and bark.

Here is a movie we took of one of the elk we saw:



More information about elk:

National Geographic

Lesson Plans/Unit Studies

Curriculum about elk
Too many elk? lesson plan

Coloring Pages

American elk
Elk coloring page
E is for elk page
Yellowstone elk page

Children's books

Ella, the elk