Sloths
At the Museum of Natural Curiosity in Utah there was a place where you could hang like a sloth (by your hands and feet) and it would tell you how many seconds you were able to stay up before you fell. Thomas thought it was fun and did it several times. Since we've gotten home he has started hanging on rails (you know the metal ones you find in public places) the same way and telling me he is a sloth. So then the other day he showed some friends of his this trick and they decided to play sloths at the park. Turns out, these friends really like sloths and watch YouTube videos about them. They were pretending to be two- and three-toed sloths. So, today he was trying to decided what he wanted to learn about during "his time," so we went to my list on the Kindle where I had added sloths the other day at the park. He chose that. I showed them the YouTube video about a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica that my friend had told me about. Afterward, he wanted to make a sloth, so I looked for a sloth craft on the internet and found a great one here. Thomas did the whole thing by himself and I basically did Stuart's. They loved them. Later, we started looking for more information about sloths. We didn't have any books or magazines about sloths, so we decided to check the library and sure enough they did. I ran down there with the boys and got the books. We read them and learned a lot and also found a fun fact sheet about sloths on the internet. As we read the fact sheet, I had Thomas tell me whether that was something we had already learned or if it was new information. (He was right every time.) Then, we decided we needed to know all the differences between two-toed sloths and three-toed sloths and so we went to Wikipedia. There we found out that a two-toed sloth should really be called a two-fingered sloth since it is on its "hands" not "feet" that it has 2 claws. Later Thomas said he wanted to make his own sloth, to which I replied that he already had. He said, "No, not a printed one. One that I make all by myself." And so, Thomas made his own sloth and a tree for it to hang in. He had to make the tree bigger so the sloth had more room to move around.
Thomas with the sloth in the original tree. The arrow is to point to where the sloth is since it can be camouflaged.
A better picture of his sloth. He wanted to arms and tail to move and was trying to figure out how to do that. I suggested brads and he thought that was a good idea.
Here you can see all the projects; the bigger tree with the sloth in it, the "printed sloth", and a new sloth he started drawing right before bed.
I love letting my little boy learn and create what he wants to. It is amazing to see the light in his eyes and the love he has for learning and figuring things out.
