Posts Tagged ‘fun and games’

Dec
05

December: Story Safari at the Houston Zoo!

Posted by in Animal Fun Facts,Classes/Programs,Featured,Fun on grounds,Public Programs

December is here and you know what that means? It’s time to bundle up with a new story at Story Safari in the Houston Zoo’s Children’s Zoo. Join us every day at 10:30AM and 11:00AM at the Butterfly Stage to listen to this month’s book: “Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed” by Mo Willems.   

Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems

I know when you think of cold weather the last thing on your mind is naked mole rats. Some of you may even ask yourself “What in the world is a naked mole rat?” That’s all okay because for this story “You only need to know three things: 1. They are a little bit rat. 2. They are a little bit mole. 3. They are all naked. All except Wilbur…” Want to find out why Wilbur likes clothes so much? Well join us for Story Safari to find out! (hey, maybe he’s cold!)

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Jan
11

Snoozzzin’ in Africa

Posted by in Classes/Programs,Fun on grounds

It’s Saturday night…what to do? Go out to the movies? Grab a bite to eat? Sleep in Africa? Hmm…this is probably not the response most people give when asked about their weekends.

If you’re privy to what goes on at the Houston Zoo, you might already know about this one-of-a-kind experience. What experience you may ask? Well, on Saturday, January 15th you can actually sleep inside the brand new African Forest exhibit!

WAIT…it gets better.

1 of our 10 inquisitive chimps checking out the crowd!

Not only can you sleep inside the African Forest, but you will be sleeping inside the Chimpanzee viewing building!

During our Wild Winks Overnight Program the public can spend the night learning, playing games and touring the Zoo. Anyone can sign up for this unique experience as long as you are 7 years or older. The event runs from 6pm to 9am the next day, so be prepared to spend a lot of quality time with the Houston Zoo!

Some of the other things to look forward to during your sleepover at the Zoo are live touchable animals, dinner, a continental breakfast, interactive activities, and free admission to the Zoo the next day! Not to mention touring Zoo grounds while no one else is around!

Our Wild Winks Overnights include visiting with a live Zoo animal!

If you’re feeling really excited about this opportunity, you won’t want to miss out on our Natural Encounters Wild Wink program on April 29th. With this overnight you will have the opportunity to sleep by piranhas, bats, an electric eel and lots more fuzzy, slimy and scaly friends!

And if you are really feeling overzealous, you can check our website to plan your overnights all the way through October 22nd, where guests will be sleeping in the Reptile House!

So, if you’re like me and don’t get the opportunity to snooze in Africa on the weekends, check out this overnight experience. If for no other reason, you will definitely have the best answer to the inevitable ”soooo….what did you do this weekend?” question.

Don’t delay-registration closes this Wednesday the 12th at midnight!

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Jan
05

Kickin’ It Winter Camp Style

Posted by in Camp

While Zoo Keepers deal primarily with animals, employees in the Education Department of the Houston Zoo specialize in working with people…especially kids! We get to practice our skill all year long and the week between Christmas and New Years we open our doors for kids ages 4-12 during our Winter Camp Zoofari!

Our Camp Zoofari kids having a dance party!

This year our week-long theme was continents. In contrast to summer camp (where kids sign up for a whole week) our winter camp kids register by the day. This year, each day was a different continent with the exception being Africa. Since the African Forest opened in December we have so many African animals to highlight that we had to split the continent between Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday we featured Asia, Thursday was South America and we finished the week with North America. Some kids were able to stay all week and they had the opportunity to really get to know the Zoo!

Due to the fact that kids may register by the day we have to pack A LOT in. We play games, do a quick lesson, touch a handling animal, venture out onto Zoo grounds, ride the carousel, eat lunch, do a craft, eat snack and PHEW-the day is pretty much over before you know it.

For the kids who attended the Friday of Winter Camp Zoofari (North America) we had the last minute opportunity to be a test group for trying out the new giraffe feeding station. This was in preparation for Summer Camp Zoofari. Kids ages 4-12 got an up close and personal encounter with one of our Masai giraffes as we fed them leaves of romaine lettuce. There’s nothing like seeing an 18 inch tongue in person to really understand animal adaptations!

Feeding our Masai Giraffes!

Although we encountered a bit of rain it was an all around great camp week. Winter Camp Zoofari always gets us geared up and ready for our summer long camp starting June 6th and running through August 12th, 2011. Our camp brochure is updated on our website so you can peruse which camps to register for now! We hope to see you and your little ones at Summer Camp Zoofari 2011!

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Nov
06

Telling a Story, Leading a Challenge

Posted by in Classes/Programs,Featured,Fun on grounds

Story Safari at the Houston Zoo is always a fun program, especially for our youngest visitors.

We offer a lot of programs and classes in the Education Department, for a variety of ages and covering a variety of topics.  Most of these programs require some advance planning on the part of the participants.  There is, however, one group of programs that we offer every day, for everyone who visits the Zoo.  We call these our Interp Programs.

Interp is short for Interpretation, but that still doesn’t explain the programs.  We offer three different types: Story Safari, Zooper Challenge, and Zoo Adventures.  Each is held twice each day.  Today I get the privilege of working outside my usual role and leading these fun on-grounds programs.

Story Safari is held at the Butterfly Stage in the Children’s Zoo, and the title is self-explanatory.  This is a story time program.  We’ll read a book about an animal and talk a little about that animal.  This is a great program for our younger visitors.  This program is held at 10:30am and 11am most days.

Zooper Challenge is a fun, audience-interactive program, also held at the Butterfly Stage.  Volunteers from the audience are selected to complete challenges based on animal abilities.  These could include things like making animal sounds, catching plastic fish in a “pelican beak” net, or touching something inside the “mystery box” and guessing what it is.  These are our highest-energy programs, suitable for all ages (and yes, I will choose adult volunteers from time to time).  This program is held at noon and 12:30pm most days.

Zoo Adventures is a bit less structured, and takes place near the BEC at a place called Werler Lawn.  On very busy days, this might be a visit from one of our animal mascots; on hot days it might be a water relay or an animal obstacle course.  Most of the time, though, we’ll bring out some of our biofacts and provide kids and adults with an opportunity to look, touch, and learn a little bit about the natural world.  These occur at 3pm and 3:30pm most days.

If you’re planning to come to the Zoo today, you might see me leading one of these free programs.  You can confirm the times for the day by checking out our schedule of daily programs.  Even if your visit is planned for the future, make sure you check out one of our interp programs.  They’re always fun!

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Jul
23

A Dozen Words for Dung

Posted by in Animal Fun Facts

One of the things that we end up talking about a lot at the Zoo is poop.  The animals make a lot of it, so the keepers get to clean it up.  Class and camp topics like “The Scoop on Poop” and “Scat Attack” are always popular, as are match-the-poop games.  We have a recipe for poop cookies.  Even when we don’t plan to talk about it, our handling animals often introduce the concept by relieving themselves during programs. 

So today, for your entertainment, here is a PG-rated list of a dozen fecal terms:

A selection of poop samples from our Collection of Recovered Animal Poop (or C.R.A.P.) box.

Poop

Dung

Feces

Scat

Droppings

Guano

Frass

Crap

Excrement

Doodoo

Turds

#2

Do you have another word for poop? (Let’s keep it PG!)

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Jul
16

A Great Way to Start the Day

Posted by in Camp

A Physical Challenge is always a great way to start a Friday!

 

Summer camp is a fun experience for campers, and we want every week to be exciting.  Our part-time teachers are the primay people responsible for the atmosphere in camp, and we want them to be enthusiastic every day.  This year, Victoria (our camp principal) devised a great way to get everyone’s energy up in the morning: teacher games! 

We have a morning camp meeting every day, and Tuesday through Friday our meeting now starts with a game.  The goal is to do something different every day.  So far, the teachers have done animal and zoo trivia, played pictionary and animal charades, identified movie quotes, and re-assembled the art carts.   On “Physical Challenge Fridays” they’ve tossed water balloons, thrown frizbees, and raced in jumping sacks.  The team with the most points at the end of the week gets a little prize. 

This week we came up with a diabolical plan.  (Insert scary laughter here.)  Throughout the summer we’ve quizzed the teachers on their knowledge of the principals and the full-time staff.  This week every challenge has been this type, which makes it more difficult.  Instead of competing for points, they’ve been accumulating items: hula hoops, balls, and frizbees.  Today their physical challenge relied on the use of these items to complete the challenge, giving the teams different advantages based on their earlier results.  The orange team, which had more hoops but fewer of the other items, succeeded in “crossing the ocean” first.  

It will be hard to top this week’s games for the remaining weeks of camp, but we will definitely try.  The teachers have been enjoying the competition, and the staff have had fun creating the games.  And the ultimate goal, getting everyone excited for the day, has definitely been accomplished.

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Sep
02

Camp In Action

Posted by in Camp

Want to live a day in the life of a Camp Zoofari camper? Now you can through this wonderful video created by Annie, one of our super fabulous camp interns. I’ll let the video speak for itself.

 

I think it captures a lot of our camp activities perfectly, but I’m just wondering when Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby came to the Zoo…?

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Jun
04

Capture the Flag!

Posted by in Camp,Fun on grounds

The Rainbow of Camp Flags

The Rainbow of Camp Flags

In an attempt to reduce some of the inevitable camp chaos, each summer camp topic is assigned a color on the first day of camp. White = Bringing up Baby, Green = Adventures in the Rainforest, Orange = Garden Safari, Purple = All Sorts of Animals, and so on.  The campers wear a colored wristband, to keep track of who belongs where, and the classrooms are labelled with their colors.  By the end of the first day, the campers know their colors and can find their classroom with ease.  Think air traffic controllers or naval officers, but with small children. 

To make check in and check out easier, we’re using large fabric flags of each of the colors.  Find the color to check in; find the color to check out!  The kids may remember their colors right away, but sometimes the grown-ups have trouble remembering their colors, so we keep a list at the check-out gate, just in case.

The youngest campers check in and out in their room, so the flags can also serve a different purpose – to make it easy to sort them at lunch!  It is simple to ask them to follow their flag, especially when we hold it up high.

With all this use, here’s keeping our fingers crossed the flags survive the summer!

Leigh, Education Specialist and Camp Assistant Principal

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May
14

Yummy in my tummy

Posted by in Fun on grounds

Unfortuantely we ate all our cookies before we could take a picture. These cookies should give you an idea of what they briefly looked like before they went in our mouths.

Unfortuantely we ate all our cookies before we could take a picture. These cookies should give you an idea of what they briefly looked like before they went in our mouths.

As we gear up for the start of summer camp (which is now only 16 days away) we decided that we needed to have a bit of fun. In the education department we always come up with creative ways to teach people about the animals by using household items such as sugar, flour, corn starch, sprinkles, and spices. We used the supplies we had on hand to make coral reefs, giraffe spit, papier-mâché, enrichment games and team building exercises  to make some delicious sugar cookies during lunch. We even found the recipe on the side of the bag of sugar. You can join in the fun at home by following this easy recipe:

1 cup sugar
1 cup butter or margarine softened
1 Egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
Preheat oven to 350 F.
1. Combine sugar, butter, egg and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat with a wooden spoon for 1-2 minutes. Stir in flour for 2-3 minutes or until dough is smooth.
2. Shape into teaspoon-size balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.
3. Press the cookie balls to inch thickness.
4. Bake the cookies for 10-14 minutes until edges begin to brown and center is firm. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack (or eat immediately as we did!)

If your mouth is watering as much as ours did over these cookies, come back next time for the giraffe spit recipe. I promise it’s super fun and cooler than it sounds.

In the meantime, check out the San Diego Zoo website for some fun and creative animal inspired recipes http://www.sandiegozoo.org/kids/recipes.html

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