Breakfast with Belugas
The Georgia Aquarium has many live webcams with live streaming. So, as a special treat, we spread out a picnic blanket and ate breakfast with the belugas. If this isn’t something that aquariums offer, it should be. It was rather enjoyable and relaxing.
Reading
We started the day with A reading a book she wrote in Kindergarten called “All About Ocean Animals”. She read to her sister and E tried to guess the creatures based on the drawings. She enjoyed playing “teacher” for the morning and sharing her knowledge…it was fin-tactic!
Penguins
SeaWorld has an entire section of their website dedicated to curriculum and resources for teachers. Heck, we are all teachers now! There are many books and activities, but we stuck to learning about Penguins, as requested by E. The video Saving a Species:Penguins is free and available on YouTube.
Touch Tank (sort of)
The Virginia Living Museum did a feeding at their touch tank a couple days prior so we were able to watch it at our leisure. They feed a horseshoe crab and share information in Spider crabs and hermit crabs, as well as the other animals in their touch tank. No, you can’t touch them, but they do a great job showing multiple views and sharing facts on the animals making it feel very much like a 1:1 tour of the tank.
Mysteries of the Deep with Dr. George Matsumoto
The Monterey Bay Aquarium social media staff did a live conversation with Dr. Matusmoto last Friday and it is now available for listening on their Facebook page. Mysteries of the Deep discusses the creatures of the deep, what they eat, what bioluminescence is and much more. There were some technical difficulties in the beginning, so skip to 4:21 to get to the meat of the conversation. It is about a 30 minute audio/video discussion.
Reading with WebCams
We have a couple of books on ocean life in our home library. We dove (Mom joke) into reading them while enjoying the sounds of the Monterey Bay Jelly Cam. There are many Live Cams at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to choose from.
My Little Book of Ocean Life is perfect for early elementary age with the bright pictures and large font.
Secrets of the Seashore is another Usborne book we have and enjoy. It utilizes a flashlight to peer through the pages at hidden images. Anytime a flashlight can be used with a book, it is a hit in our house. (Not an Usborne rep, if you want the book check in with your local reps).
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has launched a learning from home program complete with courses and activities geared toward PK-2nd and 3rd-6th. The courses require “enrolling” online, but are still free! We will be checking one The Tidepool Scientist for future learning.
Dancing
Without thought, both girls started dancing to the calm music accompanying the Live Cams. So, after reading, we all danced like jellies around the house. If you are looking for some calming background music and free entertainment for the cat in your life, this 5 hour video of the Monterey Bay Kelp cam looks promising.
A Touch of Disney
After our Disney day yesterday, E asked for Disney rides…in keeping with the theme of the day, we visited The Seas with Nemo and Friends. If you are looking for more Disney action, check out the mega-list of rides and food for making your own Virtual Disney Day here.
Aquarium of the Pacific
After we finished up the school portion of our day, I found an online academy offered from the Aquarium of the Pacific. This free resource offers live videos and activities for kids K-12. The programs are broken down into appropriate age/grade levels per topic and activity. The girls watched the Pacific Pals while I prepped dinner. The videos are short, led by the puppet leaders of the aquarium, showing behind the scenes of the aquarium while closed and some humor.
Dinner at the Bay
Obviously, this couldn’t really happen with the current COVID-19 restrictions, but turn on the Monterey Bay web cam and listen to the waves crashing while enjoying dinner. Again, surprisingly relaxing for all of us.
Apple Tart and Swiss Alps
Day 2 from the FREE KidStir Spring Break Virtual Tour is a tour of the Swiss Alps. I love that there are snacks and videos with each country. I have never used KidStir before this, but loving their free resources. We did not go apple picking as per the recommended activity, for obvious reasons, but made a pear tart with pizza crust because that is what we have on hand. #quaruntinesnacks for the win!
We watched a video from PBS about why Swiss cheese has holes and the fastest climb of Matterhorn mountain per the KidStir activity page. We are still in awe of how fast he climbed the mountain (also, the girls said, “Wait, the Matterhorn ride is named after the Matterhorn mountain? Wow!”
It was a fun day. If this was a real Spring Break, we would be doing everything together as a family, so we do miss that M has to work during this time. The silver lining being that we are enjoying the resources available to us and very grateful for the companies and Aquariums that have done so.
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