Guest Jo Linsdell

Today, I'm hosting Jo Linsdell on her "Out and About at the Zoo" book tour. This is her first children's book. Jo will be appearing on my blog a couple more times throughout her tour. Today's posting is an article geared for homeschoolers and zoo field trips.

The Zoo: Homeschooling Guide
By Jo Linsdell

Jo Linsdell is the author and illustrator of the rhyming children's picture book OUT AND ABOUT AT THE ZOO. Find out more about her here.

Kids often get bored over the long summer months and the stress levels of parents increase. A trip to the zoo will be enjoyable for the whole family and gives the opportunity to educate your kids before, during and after.

Children will love learning about the zoo and all the animals with these simple lesson plans:

Before:
· Build the excitement for your trip by doing some research about the animals or the zoo itself before you go. When was the zoo built? How many animals does it home?

During:
· Kids will have great fun seeing the animals up close. Most exhibits usually have a fact file with information about each animal. Read it with the kids as you watch the animals. Maybe even make it into a quick quiz. Get the kids to test your knowledge by asking you a question about the animal and they can check your answer from the fact file.

· Get the kids to take photo's of the animals so they can make a scrap book about the day. They might even remember some of the animal facts and be able to add them as a note by each picture.

· A lot of zoo's have petting areas where kids can get up close to the tamer animals. These areas usually have a keeper who overlooks the animals and will be able to give more information about them. Have the kids ask the keeper questions about what the animals eat, what they like etc... They might even be able to feed them themselves if you get there at the right time.

· Often you will also find cinema areas in the zoo where they show short documentaries about the animals especially the endangered species. These 'films' usually only last about 10 minutes making them just the right length to hold kids attention.

After:
· Animal picture books- Provide each child with several pages of paper folded and stapled together into a book. Give them pictures of animals cut out from magazines, or use photo's taken during your visit, and get them to choose which pictures to glue into their books. Then have them label the names of each animal.

· Zoo collage- Get the children to cut out pictures of animals and make a collage.

· Teach children about habitats. Place 3 plates on the table. In one put water, in one put sand and in the other some grass. Have some small toy animals and get children to put them in their natural habitat.

· Play pretend. Get the children to act out being zoo animals. How do they move? What noises do they make?

· Animal fact file. Have children research the different animals and put together a fact file for each one.

· Animal poetry. Talk about the different animals at the zoo. Talk about poetry and show them some examples. Have the children write their own poem about one of the animals.

· Have each child make a word-search using the names of zoo animals. Each child then completes the word-search of another.

· Alphabet animals. Get the children to help you create a list of animals using the letters of the alphabet e.g. A for Alligator, B for bear, etc...

· A quick research on the internet and you'll be able to find a huge variety of zoo themed colouring pages for some creative fun.

A trip to the zoo is can be great for everyone and it's perfect for stimulating activities. The kids will be more than happy to learn more and do crafts and activities about the animals they've seen.