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jillian
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| Posted: Oct 10 2011 at 9:21am | IP Logged
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Not sure if this goes here but:
Okay so dd is super into snakes/spiders/bugs/etc. We have a great Serpentarium near us (well 1 hour and 15 minutes each way) and the zoo (2 hours) has a great reptile house so snakes/lizards/reptiles we are golden on for field trips. However, she is really into spiders/bugs right now. I am in the Charleston, SC area but have no problem driving to Savannah, GA or Augusta, GA for field trips or with some planning the Houston, TX area (family there so we will wrap it around a visit). Does anyone have any good places for a hands on experience for spiders/bugs/insects?
We do have Bee City near us (bee farm where you can see into the hive and such and learn about the benefits of bees) but I am hoping for something a little more comprehensive.
DD is also young, almost 4 (in December).
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ekbell
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| Posted: Oct 10 2011 at 9:44am | IP Logged
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When my oldest dd's were small we were able to go
to an insectarium ,which is basically a zoo for insects (they had both dead and live ones), with an attached butterfly garden. My dd's still remember the visit ( they would have been six and a bit under four).
If there are no insectariums within reach I'd suggest searching for a butterfly zoo or garden.
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Oct 10 2011 at 9:46am | IP Logged
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I know this sounds crazy - but check with your local pest control companies! Our local Cook's Pest Control has a fantastic museum containing all kinds of insects and spiders....and it's local to us.
Also, as young as she is, my primary focus would probably be reading lots of great books on these topics and start a great insect/spider collection. Now is a great time to start. It's one thing to see some neat specimens in a museum, but it's a different thing altogether to actually FIND a walking stick insect, study it, collect it (we found one dead on the forest floor), read about it! We have a nice collection and as a family rule, we choose to only collect those specimens which have already perished.
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jillian
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| Posted: Oct 10 2011 at 9:56am | IP Logged
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Yeah we read a lot and explore online (Nat Geo website) but she is begging to see them in person and/or hold/touch if possible. She loved the Serpentarium because she could hold/touch a snake and seeing them in person was much better than online/books/tv kwim? I will see about the Pest Control companies and the Insectarium. Thank you :)
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cathhomeschool
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| Posted: Oct 11 2011 at 12:32pm | IP Logged
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Do you have a children's museum nearby or a natural history museum? Sometimes they will have bug rooms for observation. Our local wildlife extension service allows tours of a building where they keep dead and live specimens of all kinds of animals. You might try checking with universities and the parks and wildlife department near you. The universities might have entomology departments that you could tour (and maybe even touch insects).
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SallyT
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| Posted: Oct 11 2011 at 1:35pm | IP Logged
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Yes, science and nature museums are good for this. The Catawba Science Center in Hickory, NC, near us, has a room with various touchable things, alive and otherwise (whale baleen, stuff like that on a desk), plus a wall of live insects/spiders, etc, which museum staff are often, though not always, on hand to take out and display: Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a tarantula, a scorpion (not sure the scorpion is available for petting!), and so on. The same museum also has a wonderful outdoor butterfly exhibit in the spring. That's about a 4-hour drive for you, and it's not *that* exciting a destination, but it is a nice museum overall with some buggy attractions. Surely there's something comparable closer to Charleston.
We *had* Madagascar hissing cockroaches for a while, as pets -- that is, my boys had them. My next-door neighbor is a kindergarten teacher, and apparently she's had every class pet under the sun, and they all wind up at her house. So she had some to give away. Ours all died, ironically enough, when we had an exterminator come and spray. I guess we forgot that they were . . . cockroaches; at any rate, we forgot to move them out of the house while he sprayed. Anyway, many, many museums and zoos have them, and they're a good candidate for touching, because once they get big, they're pretty calm. Not that I made a habit of petting ours, mind you, but the boys were pretty attached to them.
Ah, these little-kid fixations. Good luck finding what you're looking for!
Sally
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ShannonJ
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| Posted: Oct 11 2011 at 10:34pm | IP Logged
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Such great ideas! My daughter was very into all things buggy for a couple of years. We did hit the butterfly exhibits. The University of Florida had an incredible one! Mostly she collected (already deceased) specimens from around the yard. We have spent many hours trying to identify a temporarily captured insect.
She once found a sphinx moth and we were able to submit our own pictures to the website that we used to identify the moth. Although these were pretty common to our area, we received a return email stating that her finding would be posted on the site, activating the webpage for our county and giving credit to her for the find. She got a kick out of it!
We never really went too in-depth, rather just spending great time together snuggled up in front of the computer searching to identify what she had found. She learned quite a bit this way! She still has her bug collection in a treasured spot in her room, although after moving it has taken a bit of a beating.
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jillian
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| Posted: Oct 12 2011 at 10:41am | IP Logged
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Yeah we can always go to the Houston Museum (family there and worth the trip because we want to go to the Health Museum, Art Museum and a bunch of different places there) and wrap it around a trip to see family. We have a children's museum here in Charleston but they don't have a bug room
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Grace&Chaos
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| Posted: Oct 12 2011 at 11:27am | IP Logged
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Oh that's too bad about not having a bug room. My kids have been on a bug thing this fall too. We're thinking of going to our Natural History Museum and checking out the Spider Pavilion.
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MaryM
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I know that you are not really close to Raleigh, NC, but I did see that they have two places with what look like pretty nice bug/insect displays - the NC State University Insect Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. So it might be worth the drive for a weekend field trip. They have a big Bugfest every September. Too bad that has passed for this year. But is looks awesome.
I would second connecting with your local extension service - they focus on agriculture and so address insects that affect agricultur. They may have displays and such, but also insect identification mateirals.
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MaryM
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| Posted: Oct 13 2011 at 1:37pm | IP Logged
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It looks like Clemson University also has an arthropod collection open to the public. Natural Sciences Museum
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Mary M. in Denver
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MichelleW
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| Posted: Oct 13 2011 at 2:05pm | IP Logged
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When my son was really into bugs and spiders we lived in Colorado. Our local parks and rec had a class called "Arthropods" that was for all ages. We signed up as a family and it was held in a field. We were the only ones who showed up to the class. The ranger gave us each a bug net and taught us how to beat the grass. Then we dumped everything out on a sheet and caught the scrambling bugs in little magnifying cubes.
It was memorable for so many reasons, but that day we caught 2 varieties of grasshoppers that the ranger had only read about and never actually seen with his own eyes. He was so excited, and so were we! We learned so much about bugs and spiders just sitting with this enthusiastic man. Then he showed us how he determined which specimens to keep for observation and study and which ones to set free. This was really helpful for my kids to see.
I think this one experience was far and away the most "educational" thing we did. It beat all the (really good) books we read and all the (fantastic) museums we visited because we were able to see the creatures in their natural habitat, find them, and hold them, and learn from a man who loved the subject. The ranger really communicated his passion for bugs and we all picked up on it and rode the wave for a long time.
So, that was a long winded way to say...see if you can find an entomologist or park ranger who is good at communicating love for his subject and might be willing to take you into "the field." Now that we are in Oregon, there are some fellows here that LOVE dragonflies and they know all the best spots for finding them. It is wonderful to go with them because they still are delighted everytime they encounter dragonflies and damselflies, but they also know so much about the science, ecology and issues surrounding this topic. They show you how to safely catch and hold one and let it go. They laugh with you and share your wonder and teach so naturally. We found them through the local PBS station who did a short spot on them for their show "Oregon Field Guide."
What about your local extension service? They sponsor 4H and I know 4H has an entomology division as well as a reptile one. They can usually help you find interesting people who have a love for their subject and are willing to share their knowledge intimately (rather than in a large school auditorium) especially with a child who demonstrates a love for it.
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Michelle
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MichelleW
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| Posted: Oct 13 2011 at 2:18pm | IP Logged
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Oh, and if you can afford one, a Brock Magiscope is an excellent tool. It is a field microscope with a *lifetime* guarantee against everything. We have dropped it several times and it is as good as new, but if it ever were to break due to field use it would still be covered. It is not too heavy and fits easily into my backpack. We take it everywhere and have looked at all kinds of critters (the slower one are easier to see).
Also, I wanted to say on snakes, my son has long been interested in snakes. Several years ago, the library had a reptile show. My son had a long and fascinating conversation with this man afterwords. The man invited him to watch the "unglamorous" part of his job: the daily feeding, cleaning up and caring for the animals and the frequent calls he gets to remove snakes from under people's houses. This was so fabulous. The man appreciated my son's love for the subject, told him that he should work for him when he was a little older. There are lots of people who do this kind of work and I am sure they are listed in the yellow pages. You might ask for recommendations from libraries since they would know which ones are good with kids (and that makes a huge difference).
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Michelle
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jillian
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| Posted: Oct 14 2011 at 7:18am | IP Logged
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Thanks everyone. The Clemson links look interesting and I will go and peruse those later today. We have a nature center/interpretive center about an hour from me that does nature/field classes as well.
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: Field Trips
