Saturday out....

The next event that I would like to catch all my Bloggy friends up on, is the Saturday out that we had recently. We went to a event in Houma called the La Fete d' Ecologie ( I suppose, without any background in cajun or french, that this translates into "The Festival of Ecology" This festival was every homeschool teacher's dream! There was so much to look at, learn about, and do...that I'm positive that we can log it as a FULL day of school.

This is a blacksmith, we enjoyed watching him fashion a hook with his hammer. The Big Apple had recently learned about blacksmithing in her Colonial studies, so she had tons of questions for him.

We saw some people who made different types of arrowheads out of pieces of rock. They had fishing spears and blowdarts to look at and touch too. The man on the left is actually sharpening the arrowhead with a piece of deer antler.
They dug for worms, and learned how dirt is made. If you found a worm, you got your face painted.
There was crab racing. The kids got to choose a crab from a bin and hold it in place until it was time for the race to start. For some reason, it was always the tiny ones that skittered across the finish line first!
I love this picture of The Middle Apple. There was a turtle in the bayou that kept surfacing and hiding again. She stood and watched for the turtle for resurface over and over again for at least a good 20 minutes.
The Apples could have stayed and done this activity all day long. It showed what would happen to our environment if we don't protect our wetlands.
Local furs to look at and touch. Very cool.
The Apples got to help paint a wetlands mural. True to form, The Middle Apple decided that surely mermaids live in the wetlands, so she painted one.
The Big Apple showed off her itty bitty tiny Mosquito Fish.
Then there was THIS GUY. I think he is supposed to be King of the Swamp or something. He had a band of people banging pots, pans, garbage can lids, and the like...and they parade around the festival grounds. Odd. Only in Louisiana can a king wear beer as a necklace and Spanish moss for a beard.
This was my favorite part of the day. At one of the tables, the girls met a lady that had a very interesting display of the many different types of critters that live in the bayou. She demonstrated what happens to the wildlife when the wetlands aren't protected and maintained. The girls spent nearly an hour asking her many many questions. The lady was rather impressed by their questions and level of understanding, that she took them down to the water edge with a net, helped them scoop up some creatures. Then, they took their findings back up to the table and helped her classify them using some of her books.
You may notice that The Little Apple isn't in any of these pictures. That is because she was a crab, didn't have a nap, and stayed in her stroller for most of the time, only to be shut up with cookies. If not for the crabbiness of her, our day would have been perfect. As we were climbing exhausted back into our van, The Big Apple asked if this could be counted as a school day. OF COURSE!!!!! I learned alot too!