Lately, my eldest and I have been talking a lot about where animals live across our planet. She has been asking lots of questions about which animals live where (land and sea), where are their beds, what do they eat? Today we enjoyed learning about whale sharks.

What a great activity. I found a very cheap plastic figurine of a whale shark (AU$3) at a local variety store. First we set up the clam shell pool on the back deck and filled it with water together. Then we busted out the laptop and watched a short National Geographic documentary on whale sharks in Western Australia wearing cameras on their dorsal fins! http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/australia-whale-shark-crittercam-vin

The You Tube video of multiple whale sharks swimming was great too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn5a3XJhJd4

My cherub then took her new plastic whale shark to the water and replicated what she’d seen them do in the videos (feeding, big gulps, swimming with the powerful tail). This toy even made it to the warm bubble bath and the talk continued about all of the whale sharks parts (tail, gills, dorsal fin, pectoral fins, eyes, mouth).

This image shows my cherub replicating whale shark feeding behaviour (like in the videos), coming to the surface, gulping water and swimming. She was talking about little fish sitting under the whale shark’s fins .

Embedded learning following her natural curiosity. I don’t know what early educators would call this, but she was engaged and excited. She taught her father all about whale sharks over dinner. It was lovely to see her describe her experience. “Daddy, a whale shark is as long as two of our decks lined up! That’s big, Daddy.  This is how they eat (insert gulping action)”.

Hope you have a great week and learn something new.

Big love xx