... the one about Brazilian eggs

SO, Mady and I are in Brazil.

Not literally IN Brazil.

We are literally IN our living room (or the coffee shop or the library) ...

but our minds are in Brazil here at home school in dicoccoville.

Mady has said many times "all this reading is great and all, but don't you think we'd learn so much MORE if we were actually IN the Amazon??" Yup. A girl after my own heart.


Here are some things I've learned...

*there is actually a fresh water dolphin that lives in the Amazon river... navigating through the mucky water with echolocation.


*the rain forest soil is super rich in nutrients, but only because of the rainforest itself. The canopy of trees holds in moisture and leaves fall to decay and naturally lay compost in the soil. When people level the trees to cultivate the land with farms, the soil very quickly dries up and is useless... not only for the farmer, but also for new rainforest growth to re-establish itself.


*the boy bird of paradise has these fabulous feathers that he uses to show off to passing girly-girls. But that's not all he does, he works diligently to clear a path in the leaves out from the trees above him so that a shaft of sunlight will fall into the dark forest... directly on him... to show off his glitz in style.



We have also been studying about different kinds of birds... and the eggs they lay. We are amazed at how something fragile enough to let a delicate neonatal birdling punch it's way through, can also be strong enough to protect the growing baby bird safely inside.


Mady tried to crush a chicken egg today... using both hands.. and couldn't make it budge... so we wondered how strong they really are.... We leveled off four eggs and started stacking books on top of them.. we made it up to 21... including a math book and a dictionary!

.

Maybe that Horton really could have hatched his egg after all!


... a math book... an elephant... not much difference there.


.

One last bit of tid...
Brazil is so large, it shares a border with all but two of the South American countries. (can you guess which two without looking at a map??)