This year in science, Aidan and I are studying Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. We love Apologia science! So far, we have learned about whales, seals and walruses, sea reptiles, and fish. I have been wanting to do something to make the sizes of some of these amazing animals more understandable to the kids, and so last week Aidan and I did this project:
Aidan chose 6 animals from his book that he wanted to measure: Blue Whale, Great White Shark, Leatherback Sea Turtle, Dolphin, Killer Whale, and a Newborn Sperm Whale. First, we measured their lengths outside – the Blue Whale was actually not too hard to measure because our property line is exactly 100 ft. from our backyard fence to the edge of the street! Then, we looked for something to compare to the length of the animal. This was fun, and also made it easier to comprehend the sizes of these huge animals!
Here’s what we came up with:
Blue Whale = 100 ft., or the length of Aidan walking 50 steps.
A newborn Sperm Whale is about 15 feet, or 1.5 feet less than the length of our minivan! That’s some baby!
A Killer Whale is 30 ft., or the length of the driveway.
A Leatherback Sea Turtle is about 9 ft., or two and a half sidewalk squares.
A Great White Shark is 22 ft., or about 4 of Dad’s height!
A Dolphin is 12 ft., or the length of 4 Owens! (age 2 1/2)
Feel free to copy our idea! It was a lot of fun! Just make sure to put the markers away before the 2 year old finds them. Just a thought… Nothing like that would ever happen at our house…
2 Comments
Stephanie R. Nov 2, 2011
I love the Apologia too! We are doing the Astronomy this year. It has been fun. We are also adding papermache solar system that is hanging from our ceiling. I think we are going to try the swimming creatures next year... maybe next quater if we keep going the way we are. :0)
Sarah Nov 4, 2011
I'm really looking forward to the Astronomy book. I can't decide if we'll do Zoology part 3 next, or Astronomy!
Mary Nov 4, 2011
Swimming Creatures is by far my favorite of the Apologia Elementary series. Great work!!!
Sarah Nov 4, 2011
You know, I wasn't totally looking forward to swimming creatures, but you're right - it's very well written! We have a new aquarium in our town that we are going to visit when we get a little farther along in the book. The boys can't wait!
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