Dinosaur Poop

The best thing about homeschooling (so far) is the ability to reward ourselves with a fun and educational field trip whenever we want. Today was our third field trip and we went to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. (If you haven't been, I highly recommend it ON A MONDAY MORNING!)

 
To celebrate the end of our science unit on dinosaurs, we went primarily to see the new Dinosaur Halls that they have. The new exhibits are impressive! I was able to download a fun worksheet from their website that tied in perfectly to what we had been studying. So, off we went with clipboards in hand to look at each fossil and determine who was a carnivore vs. an herbivore based on their teeth.

But, you know what else we found? DINOSAUR POOP. Because, you know, nothing is more exciting than poop, and even though it wasn't on our worksheet to learn about, it was the highlight of the day! (Specifically, it was T-Rex poop with pieces of a Duck-Billed Dino in it, which is how scientists know that T-Rexes ate Duck-Billed Dinos.)

We also had the privilege of being quizzed by the enthusiastic museum employees about hip joints, hollow bones, mating techniques, ancestry, etc. because we were almost the ONLY ones there - and definitely the only ones with clipboards actively devouring all the information provided.

The one with the best hoods get the girls!

Traveling as a family

Interactive exhibits

Eggs and embryos

Toothless carnivore (what!?!)

Paleontologist Practice

And last, but not least, for those of you who remember that I have an ostrich lover in my family - we hunted down and found at least 4 different ostriches throughout the museum in different areas, because, in case you didn't know, the most direct descendant of a dinosaur is ... a bird!

Ostrich skeleton

Male Ostrich (black feathers)

Female Ostrich (brown feathers)

Baby Ostrich