Great information from the Disney Parks Blog

Guests at Disney’s Animal Kingdom will celebrate one of the wonders of nature — bird migration — Saturday, May 8, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., at Disney’s Animal Kingdom with activities throughout the park in recognition of International Migratory Bird Day.

International Migratory Bird Day focuses on the nearly 350 species of birds that migrate from breeding areas in North America to winter homes in Central and South America and the Caribbean. These birds face many challenges as they migrate thousands of miles, including loss of habitat along their migration routes, finding food and avoiding predators. International Migratory Bird Day helps educate people about the threat to migratory birds and what we can do to help – including planting native trees and shrubs, keeping cats indoors, and sup porting conservation organizations.

On May 8, young Disney’s Animal Kingdom Guests can choose to be banded and become “honorary birds” for the day, migrating to various banding stations to participate in fun activities throughout the park that pose questions like, “What is your wing span?” and “What is your feather color?”

Guests also will have the opportunity to see an aircraft used in the Operation Migration program to lead rare whooping cranes in their migration from Wisconsin to Florida and talk with program representatives at Rafiki’s Planet Watch. The Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund has supported Operation Migration every year since the program’s inception in 2000. Another fun stop at Rafiki’s Planet Watch on International Migratory Bird Day is the activity station hosted by Audubon of Florida.

Every day is really for the birds at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, where Disney’s Animal Programs Cast Members are active participants in Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ managed breeding programs. Recently, we were very pleased to welcome our very first Tawny Frogmouth chick to the Disney’s Animal Kingdom family. The Tawny Frogmouth, native to Australia, is affected in the wild by loss of habitat and the use of pesticides. Guests can see a variety of birds when they visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom, including those in walk-through aviaries on both Pangani Forest Exploration Trail and the Maharajah Jungle Trek, and in the park’s fantastic bird show, Flights of Wonder.

“There’s no better place to celebrate Earth Day than at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, where Guests are invited to Party for the Planet in a fun-filled day overflowing with special activities from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

The party starts just inside the turnstiles, where Guests will be welcomed and begin their celebration. Guests can play earth-friendly games at several activity stations throughout the park, and then head to “party central” — Rafiki’s Planet Watch. It’s the perfect place for kids to get in touch with their inner amphibian (can your child jump as far as a frog?), sea turtle (what’s it like to wear a shell?) or other fascinating creature (be on the lookout for lady bugs). In celebration of the premiere on Earth Day of the new Disneynature film “Oceans,” families will learn actions they can take to protect ocean wildlife and habitats, including coral reefs.”

Check out the Disney Parks Blog for full details.

Disneynature brings OCEANS to the big screen on Earth Day, April 22, 2010.  Nearly three-quarters of the earth’s surface is covered by water and OCEANS boldly chronicles the mysteries that lie beneath.

Be sure to check out the educational guides that have been created with the help of National Geographic.

Educational Activity Guide

This 8-Page Guide can be used to enhance students’ geographic and scientific knowledge of Earth’s oceans, as presented in the new Disneynature film OCEANS.  The guide will enrich students’ viewing of the new Disneynature film OCEANS, prompt student inquiry and learning about the animals and habitats featured in the movie, and inspire exploration of the unexplored world beneath the surface of our planet’s oceans.

Educator’s Guide

This 42-page Educator’s Guide presents additional curriculum ideas for teachers to incorporate elements from the Disneynature film OCEANS into students’ learning plans.  The guide include a wide variety of engaging activities for grades 2-6, organized to introduce students to the physical characteristics of the oceans and specific ocean habitats, so you can explore the depths of our planet’s oceans as a class when Disneynature OCEANS opens in theatres on Earth Day – April 22, 2010.

Lego Store Downtown Disney, Orlando, FL

Join in the LEGO^® Store Monthly Mini Model Build!
Visit your local LEGO Store on the first Tuesday of every month and you can learn how to build a cool mini model, and take it home – for free! Quantities are limited and offer is good while supplies last only. A new model will be available every month and will be specially themed to that month – ask a Store Associate for details! Models are not for sale and cannot be purchased. One free per child. Event is open to children ages 6 to 14 only. See store for more details.

We have enjoyed learning more about our country’s presidents – what their lives were like, what lead them to seek the office of president and some of the issues the country was facing during their time in office.  There are so many books written about our nation’s leaders but many are filled with the same (often dry) facts and figures.

We recently found an interesting set of DVDs that have helped to get my kids excited about learning about our country’s presidents.  They are “The American Presidents” by Disney Educational Productions.

Not only do these DVDs give an overview of what life was like at the time, in a way that children can related to and understand, they share funny and interesting facts about the presidents and present them in a way that seems a bit different, but really seems to stick with my children.  The graphics are funny and are used to make (and often exaggerate) certain points.

If you are looking for a stuffy history lesson that includes an exhaustive study of each president then this isn’t for you, but if you want something to supplement your family’s learning and will help them remember some interesting history facts then you might want to check this out.  We’ve had the DVD just a few days and my kids have watched it several times and have been repeating their favorite parts over and over.  It goes to show that learning can be fun!

Here is a link to a free shipping offer on any Disney Educational Productions products that is good only until March 31, 2010.

Our journey began by reading the story of Alice in Wonderland .  Since our book club began several months ago my children have started to understand how authors take the original story and produce different versions to appeal to different readers.  Now they usually begin by reading a short version (with illustrations, our favorites are by Usborne Books) to get an introduction to the story and then read or listen to a version that is a bit longer with more of a focus on language and the details of the story.

Because my children like math and science they were very interested to learn more about Lewis Carroll’s (Charles L. Dodgson) work as a mathematician and photographer.  In our history studies we are talking about the mid-1800s and the use of photography in the American Civil War so we did a bit of research about Dodgson’s work with photography in England during the same time period.  We also tried our hand (and brains) at some interesting math and logic puzzles he published, many based on Alice and her friends.

We also found some worksheets to help round out our language arts efforts during our month long study of Alice.

No study of Alice In Wonderland would be complete (at least for us) without reviewing Disney’s version(s) of this classic story.  A friend gave us an illustrated version of Walt Disney’s Alice In Wonderland with beautiful concept art from the original animated film.  We used that to talk about how the illustrations helped to tell the story and depict the characters.  Naturally a viewing of the original 1951 Alice in Wonderland animated film was on our agenda as well!

We were anxious to see the new Disney Alice in Wonderland movie.  I had heard that it wasn’t exactly based on the original story so after reading some reviews I was able to piece together that it was a story based on Alice and her adventures, but not her original trip through the rabbit hole.  To help prepare for our trip to the movie we read the poem of the Jabberwocky.  Although the poem was a bit difficult for my children to understand it did provide a chance for us to talk about Carroll’s use of nonsense words and introduce the Jabberwocky character (both were a part of the movie).  We enjoyed the movie very much and thought it was a great new interpretation of the classic story.

To top it all off our book club held a “Very Merry Unbirthday” tea party! Thanks to some very creative ideas from DisneyFamily.com , and the amazing talents of our moms, the kids enjoyed a crazy, fun time.  They created their own hats to wear, ate cookies and sandwiches, drank tea, painted roses, and waited with anticipation to see what would happen when they drank a special “potion” from little bottles labeled “Drink Me”!  Of course there was a croquet game involved and the highlight was a cake that looked like the Cheshire Cat.

The next time our group heads to the Magic Kingdom we will complete our adventure with a ride on the Mad Tea Party tea cups and hopefully track down the Mad Hatter and Alice for a photo.  We think the Mad Hatter would be very pleased with our wild ride through Alice’s world!

Our travels at Disney’s Animal Kingdom gave us an opportunity to see many interesting and unique animals “up close and personal”.  We did our homework before we went to learn about the habitats/biomes of Africa and what animals need to be able to live in the different areas.  Here is what we were able to see and learn when we visited the animals in their own habitats:

The Pangani Forest Trail includes areas with lush vegetation and waterfalls which are home to animals such as the colobus monkeys, the okapi (imagine giraffe that has a zebra body) and beautiful birds and ducks (too many to mention but there is a wonderful guide available to help identify the various types).  An indoor “research station” has displays with naked mole rats (not as cute as in the Kim Possible show), a pancake tortoise, a scorpion, frogs, snakes and more.  As our journey continued we saw hippos enjoying a swim and meerkats on the savanna (on the day we were visiting the guide claims they were keeping a look out for a pesky hawk that was in the area).  As the trail winds toward the end there are two groups of gorillas to see (one was a family group and the other was a group of male gorillas).

Along The Kilimanjaro Safari we found hippos, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, flamingos (their private little island is in the shape of a hidden Mickey), lions, warthogs, gazelle, impala, a cheetah and crocodiles.  The Safari is designed to be more of an entertaining attraction than a science lesson (so it was nice that we did some research before we set out on our safari), but the guides do a nice job of including a few interesting facts along the way.  There is also a large sign posted inside of each Safari vehicle that shows a picture and the name of each animal on the safari to help everyone identify their favorites.

To cap off our African adventure we attended The Festival of the Lion King.  We have been to Animal Kingdom more times that I can count, but for some reason we had never taken the time to visit this amazing show…I had no idea what we were missing!!  This is a beautiful show that is fun for the kids (their favorite characters from the Lion King are front and center) but also a wonderful celebration of African music, dance and costumes.

We enjoyed our studies of African habitats and animals.  Now we can get our passports ready as we head to Asia!

Join in the LEGO^® Store Monthly Mini Model Build!
Visit your local LEGO Store on the first Tuesday of every month and you can learn how to build a cool mini model, and take it home – for free! Quantities are limited and offer is good while supplies last only. A new model will be available every month and will be specially themed to that month – ask a Store Associate for details! Models are not for sale and cannot be purchased. One free per child. Event is open to children ages 6 to 14 only. See store for more details.

Upcoming Mini Model Build:
LEGO Groundhog: Tuesday, February 2, begins at 5:00pm until supplies last

LEGO Store Mini Heart Speed Building Event!
Saturday, February 13
Visit your local LEGO Store on Saturday, February 13 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm to participate in a LEGO heart speed building event!  Builds start promptly every 10 minutes and the fastest builder will win a special prize to take home!  Everyone who participates will receive a mini heart of their own.  See additional contest rules, terms & conditions at the LEGO Store.  No purchase necessary.

Here are a few additional things we did and learned on our journey –

We allowed each family to select a version of the book that worked for them — some read illustrated classics while others read the unabridged version.  This was a great way to allow everyone to read at a level that was appropriate for their family.

We had each child conduct their own research about the author and about the time period in which the story was written.  Our children are at an age where they are interested in putting everything on a timeline as this helps them to better visualize the time period and events that may have impacted the author and his story telling.

We included a writing assignment, for this lesson we had the children write a newspaper article about a scene in one of the stories.  They learned about the various elements of a newspaper article, selected the scene they wanted to write about and created their own dramatic and fact filled stories.  It was fun to see their interests and personalities come through as they described their favorite scenes.

One of the children’s favorite activities was experiencing different versions of the stories on CDs and as movies.  Of course we watched the Disney version of the Jungle Book (who doesn’t love the fun songs!) and we found the Chuck Jones Collection, an animated version of Mowgli’s Brothers and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.  We also enjoyed an audio CD version of the book by storyteller Jim Weiss.  We listed to the different versions of the stories and had great conversations about the similarities and differences of each presentation.

And of course we topped off our adventure with a trip to the Magic Kingdom and a ride on the Jungle Cruise.  Yes, I understand that the Jungle Cruise isn’t exactly based on The Jungle Book, but it was a fun way to wrap-up our lesson.  Since many of the silly jokes zoomed right past our kids, the moms enjoyed a few laughs while the kids gave names to all of the animals we saw along the journey.

I’m happy to say that our adventure was fun and educational.  We were able to bring a book to life and explore it for a month and as a result we will have many great memories to share!

It’s been a chilly start to 2010 here in Central FL so it was a pleasure to recently spend a few hours inside The Land Pavilion at EPCOT.  This school year my son has been taking a science class (through Science Partners in Orlando) and for the past several weeks has been learning about plants.  We love the “Living with the Land” attraction, especially the greenhouse, so we decided to supplement his learning about plants by attending the “Behind the Seeds” tour.

This tour gave us a chance to walk through the greenhouses and learn more about some innovative farming techniques that are being used around the world.   The tour started with a discussion of the natural pest control techniques used in the greenhouse and included a video showing how some pests can easily destroy plants, and how lady bugs can be used to keep them under control.   Our kids were each given a small jar of ladybugs to carry along during the tour.  When we arrived at the strawberry plants (about half way through the tour) the lady bugs were released and put to work!

If you take the “Living with the Land” boat tour you will see some very interesting plants – many of which you would probably never otherwise see in person.  Some of our favorites include bananas, cocoa, coffee, paprika and fluted melons.  Some of the unique plants you have an opportunity to see up close and personal on the tour include 9 pound lemons (yes, we actually got to hold it and it was big and heavy), Cinderella pumpkins (the inspiration for Cinderella’s carriage), and miracle fruit (according to our guide if you put it on your tongue everything you eat after it tastes sweet…my kids thought that would be a nice way to enhance the taste of veggies!).

The tour also demonstrates many interesting growing techniques.  Many plants are grown vertically either in containers that are stacked on top of each other or plants are trained to grow up and over trellises (the tomato tree is amazing!).  They also show examples of hydroponic growing which is a system that uses little or no soil.  The tour also touches on aquaculture which on this tour includes the farming of fish (tilapia and sturgeon), prawns and eels.  Our group had a chance to feed the tilapia and feeding time for so many hungry fish is quite a site to see!  There are also some “cute” baby American alligators to see on the tour.

The Behind the Seeds tour lasted for about an hour.  It moves along quickly but offers plenty of time for guests to ask questions.  It is a walking tour so be sure to wear comfy shoes.  The tour is open to all ages but I personally think it would be most interesting to kids over the age of about 6 years old.  You can register ahead of time by calling (407) WDW-TOUR or (407) 939-8687 or if you want to plan a last minute adventure you can visit the tour desk next to the entrance to Soarin.  If you have a Disney Visa or annual pass ask if you get a tour discount (I think you do, but I forgot to ask!!)

We really had a great time on the tour.  I’m not sure if the kids were more excited learning about the plants or with the idea of actually going behind the scenes of a WDW attraction.  Either way it was well worth our time and very educational!   And don’t forget — at the end be sure to stop by the Seasons Food Fair in The Land pavilion.  Some of the veggies grown in the greenhouse are served there.