Homeschool: Zoology

We started a Zoology block for 4th grade last week.  It's supposed to be a Steiner thing about how mice represent intellect and are fearful, lions are emotional, cows are physical and digestive, but people are superior and have all those things.  I couldn't stand to teach something that, as a Darwinist, strikes me as untrue on so many levels, so we are kind of unschooling a bit here.  Mirin is picking an animal every week to study, preferably animals here that we can observe in person rather than just reading about and drawing.  Last week it was horses.

We brought him to the horse farm where we got manure.  The lady was glad to see us, but slightly dismayed that we were not getting manure (we are trying to get away from using horse manure because of the toxic wormer Ivomectin used).  However, she was glad to have us out, even if we were just watching the horses.  We did come in handy, because shortly there was some excitement when one of the horses that has been suffering from constipation started rolling on the ground and acting weird.  The horse-farm lady got him up and had him keep walking while she was on the phone with a vet and the owner of the horse.

Meanwhile, one of the other horses got out and was ravaging the expensive alfalfa hay.  She was still very occupied with the other horse, so we shooed it away and locked it into another stall.  She was very grateful for our help, and Ethan helped keep the horse walking while she had to run and get medicine for it.  It made for an exciting and realistic horse-observing experience.