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Presentation for the kids!

j3nnay Apr 03, 2007 08:43 AM

Well, I did the first snake-involved presentation for the kids at the Spring Camp yesterday. All the kids at the camp were girls between the ages of 6 and 12.

I started out with "What do you think we have in common with snakes?" and whaddaya know we have lots of stuff in common with snakes. A backbone, head, eyes, etc... Went into "Soooo, d'you think you can tell a boy snake from a girl snake?" Of course they all guessed right that Cindy was a girl. Probably because it was animal families day and I'd brought out Darwin, the "Dad", first.

I explained a bit about baby makin, snake style, and told them about the difference between pythons and boas, and had a little detour about how giving live birth doesn't "break the rules about being a snake". One little girl was absolutely convinced that the snakes had venom, and while she had no problem with them, I could not for the life of me convince her otherwise. She was only six, though, so I'll leave it to her future biology teacher to explain it to her!

Then out came the babies! Everyone went "AWWWW" at the babies, even the girls who said they were scared of snakes. I explained that while momma snake wrapped around the eggs, once the babies hatched they were on their own. Told em about how Dot took three days to come out of her egg and how Coco came out in just a couple hours. Then I went around and showed everyone how to hold a little snake - and one of the girls who said she was scared of snakes held one! :D

Then I put the babies away, brought out Cindy, and asked who wanted to hold her, and took pictures (The way things were situated there was no one to take pictures of the actual presentation, sorry!) of the girls with the snakes. Biggest triumph? The one little girl who was so scared of snakes she wouldn't even touch the stuffed snake... touched Cindy! The biggest snake I had there! (I had the lady running the Camp take a picture of it)

All in all it was pretty awesome. Next week oughtta be just as fun! Thanks for everyone's help in getting what I should say ironed out. Your help made it much easier and I'm pretty sure a lot more interesting for the kids!

Maybe next week there'll be an adult around who can take pictures during the presentation. It was pretty cool to see the kids' faces when I was tellin em neat stuff like how snakes don't smell with their noses and how noooooo they don't have venom...!

~jenny
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1.4 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, Periscope, Dot, and Coco)
0.2 rescue chinese water dragons (Yoni and Linga)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)
0.1 mice (Cute Girl Mousy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
0.0.5 tropical fish (tetras and a neon blue gourami)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
3.0 horses (Buddy, Sam, and Scout)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
0.0.1 chupacabra (it ate our chickens)

jenny.thegreenes.org

Replies (2)

Amelia Apr 03, 2007 09:41 AM

Well it seems like this worked out quite well, aside from not really having anyone else around to take some pictures for you. I hope the next one goes just as well. I love doing things like that, especially for younger people, but hey you can teach some adults too if they happen to be around events like this.
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-Amelia
ES Tropicals

ScubaSteveO Apr 03, 2007 04:52 PM

I think its great that you did this for the kids. Oddly enough it was my daughter who started our love of reptiles. We have 2.1 crested geckos, 0.1 Japanese rat snake, and 1.0 normal ball python presently. I have found that my 7 year old daughter and her friends are much more curious about the animals and want to hold them than my 9 yearold son and the older boys. The boys say "cool" when the see them, but want to keep their distance, HaHa. The girls are all about playing with them. I think I might help my daughter do a presentation for her Brownie troop. Im trying to find out if I can do a presentation for the kids grade school. Great job

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