Eating our young

When I started this blog up months ago, it was my hope that Einstein (the central father, husband, and mad-scientist force in our lives) would feel free to contribute. We're a team after all, or at least that's the goal. Homeschooling is a family endeavor, and the dad in this house has plenty to say about it, as well. Here's Einstein's take, sort of a Natural Science lesson, wouldn't you say?

Sunburst is always wanting to play animal games where she is a horse or a dog and I'm the owner, or the other way around. It gets repetitive after a while and I'm always looking for ways to mix things up. So yesterday I thought, what if we read some little
snippet from the Becoming a Tiger book, and then act it out.

The first snippet I read was about the sharp-shinned hawk, which apparently isn't born knowing what size food it should be hunting. So when some ecologists went out and watched what sharp-shinned hawks tried to catch they found out that baby sharp-shinned hawks tend to go after food that is too big or difficult to catch (like pigeons). Adult sharp-shinned hawks know better and only hunt little guys like sparrows.

Perfect. First we got out the bird book and I showed Sunburst what a sharp-shinned hawk looks like.

"You be a young sharp-shinned hawk," I said, "and I'll be a pigeon."

WHAM!

Peck, peck, peck!!!

Lots of pigeon and hawk shrieks, and then the pigeon has some sharp-shinned hawk for lunch.

"That's not how it goes, Dad. Pigeon's don't eat hawks."

"Okay. Now I'll be an adult sharp-shinned hawk and you be a sparrow."

SWOOOSH. WHAM!!!

I pick her up and fly her up on to the couch, where I eat her. Yum.

And so it goes back and forth like this for a while and somehow
never gets boring.