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Every month we receive hundreds of truly wonderful animal drawings from our readers. Each one shows the potential and heart of its young creator, and we enjoy publishing their work, which we hope encourages and inspires all children to greater creativity. Here are some of the Kids Zooworks winners from our current Zoobooks issue, Tigers. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
Here are some of the winners of our most recent Kids Zooworks contest, featured in Zoobooks Apes.
. Do you have a favorite? Enlist the young artists you know to enter our next contest, where winners will appear on the web. By March 10, send drawings done in color or black ink on solid white paper–or submit a story or poem on the animal of your choice (less than 100 words) to: PO Box 712769, Santee, CA 92072-2769.
Here are three potential cover photos for Zoobooks Apes, our January issue–please comment and let us know which one you find most appealing. Not all apes are represented here, because there are several species: gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gibbons, and siamangs–whew, that’s a lot! Maybe it’s a good thing we aren’t including monkeys, too. (What’s the most obvious difference between a monkey and an ape, by the way? The answer is, apes don’t have tails.)
Every month we receive the artistic work of hundreds and hundreds of talented children. It’s a tough task to select just a few of them to publish in each Zoobooks issue, but it delights us to think that all these kids, published or not, are being inspired to create on a level they may not have attempted before.
Seeing their art really makes it clear that children are absorbing a great deal. We know they are learning from Zoobooks
overtly–all those new fun facts about giraffes have a way of creeping into conversation or school reports–but their art demonstrates how the grace, movement, and color shades of giraffes is being imparted as well. It’s not only beautiful, but somehow hopeful. We like thinking the newest generation will have a gut-level connection to the animals that need their help. Which drawing is your favorite? We bet you find it tough to choose, too.
Two words to impress your kids and your friends from the latest Zoobooks Animal Babies (page 2):
Some animal babies, whether they are born or hatched, emerge highly developed. These babies require little or no care or training. They are precocial. Others still have a long development stage and need a lot of care from their parents. These babies are altricial.
Play a game that will cement the learning. One person names an animal and the next person labels it precocial or altricial. If you aren’t sure of the answer, do some research together to find out – that’s a great way to model learning, practice research and have fun together! Play the P-A game in the car, around the dinner table, with a crowd of kids or just two.
Zoobooks Animal Babies and Zootles Butterflies (arriving in homes this month) both feature the life cycle of a butterfly, also known as metamorphosis. For younger children 2 to 6 years old, Zootles introduces butterfly metamorphosis in a full two pages. It follows the life of a swallowtail butterfly with fun facts that may amaze even you. For example, did you know that caterpillars shed their skin as they grow? Or that the caterpillar’s last skin forms the chrysalis that protects it while transforms into a butterfly?
In Zoobooks Animal Babies, for older kids 6 and up, the life cycle of the butterfly is part of a larger feature on the hatching and birth of many different kinds of animals. For older kids there are fascinating details that make metamorphosis sound like a science fiction movie plot – except it’s real: “Encased in the chrysalis, the caterpillar dissolves into a thick liquid. New life begins to take form, and eventually a butterfly breaks free of the chrysalis.”
To order Zoobooks Animal Babies or Zootles Butterflies go to www.zoobooks.com and click on the zoo store, or better yet subscribe!
Charles Darwin would say that animal reproduction, or the successful passing on of an animal’s genes to the next generation, is what makes that animal a success in the gene pool. But studies are finding that there are many animals that choose to delay or forgo reproduction to help other animals in their social group raise young.
The practice is called Kin Selection, and suggests that some animals ensure that at least some of their genes are successfully passed on not by reproducing themselves, but by making sure that close relatives become successful parents. Animal helpers most often assist those most closely related to themselves–parents and siblings–and their help can be instrumental in protecting the young from predators, and providing food. This way, animals may actually ensure the passing on of more of their own genes than if they’d had their own offspring. It also opens doors: the experience better equips animals to be star-quality parents themselves, if they should reproduce later in life.
Read about animal babysitters in Zoobooks Animal Babies, the current issue, and see how this theory might apply. You may see animal “aunties” in a whole new light!
Zoobooks Animal Babies, page 3
- The answer is on the left, from the latest Zoobooks Animal Babies that will be in homes next week.
- Many zoos, petting zoos, and museums have incubators where kids can watch eggs hatch. Try searching online using keywords “egg hatching exhibit” and add your town or city at the end. You may find incubators for snakes, amphibians or fish in addition to the more common chick hatching incubators. When you visit look for the “egg tooth”.
Want this Zoobooks? Go to www.zoobooks.com where you can order individual titles in our web store or, for the best deal, subscribe!
We’re all aware of the two parenting extremes in the animal kingdom: a primate such as the orangutan will raise and protect its offspring for as long as ten years, while many types of fish nonchalantly spew eggs into the ocean without a backwards glance.
But what interesting behaviors do we find between the two extremes? How about a cold-blooded reptile that still finds a way to use its body to warm (incubate) its eggs? Indian pythons coil themselves around their unhatched offspring, and make their bodies shiver to create heat and maintain a suitable temperature for the eggs! Once hatched, however, the young snakes are on their own.
Fathers are often absent in the animal world, but the exceptions can be, well, exceptional. Male seahorses have brood pouches in which to carry the female’s eggs, and as the young seahorses hatch and go out into the world, it looks as though the father seahorse is giving birth. Some fathers play a less direct role, but are still occasionally active participants. Tigers live solitary lives, for example, but if a female and cubs come upon a male with a fresh kill, the male will often step back and let them eat first, greeting the cubs by nuzzling them.
Your next Zoobooks issue, Animal Babies, explores these techniques and many others–including animal daycare, and how different animals achieve adult independence. Watch for it in your mailbox soon!
Turkey Vulture Soaring
Zoobooks Birds of Prey hatches activities that can deepen a child’s curiosity for science. After “Making Points” in the issue’s Tear-Out Activity Pages, go to the Secret Jungle at www.zoobooks.com to get the card game “Preying Pairs” and make an owl with “Who? Me?” Remember, the Secret Jungle is just for subscribers, so you’ll need the secret password printed in the Zooworks section of Zoobooks or the inside back cover of Zootles.
Then, let your young learner’s science wings soar at the CornellLab of Ornithology All About Birds website where you can hear the hiss of a turkey vulture or the cry of a red kite. The site has entries for vultures, hawks, eagles and birds of all kinds from all over the world.
But it doesn’t end there. Through the Cornell Ornithology website, join NestWatch, and as spring advances, you and your children can contribute to a nationwide bird nesting study, build a “nesting box,” and keep records on chick development. It’s a bit more than the usual build-a-bird-house project because it adds to scientific knowledge about our nation’s birds.
To help your child learn more about birds, find books for all ages on our webstore: Zoobooks Eagles, Zoobooks Geese, Ducks & Swans, Zoobooks Hummingbirds, Zoobooks Penguins, Zoobooks Parrots, Zoobooks Ostriches, Zoobooks Seabirds, and Zootles Backyard Birds, Zootles Parrots, Zoobies Penguins, Critters Up Close Owls, Critters Up Close Penguins, and Critters Up Close Flamingos.
