explore more this weekend: animals
/Kim and Louisa recently bought 4 new sheep—this handsome fellow and three ewes—so we decided that our first ‘explore-more Friday’ should be about animals. Here are some fun and interesting links we found around the web, plus some books of course:
20 reasons to get a pet—cute!
A collection of songs about Aussie Animals.
Schleich animal toys. Kim: we have more than a hundred of them. They've always been the birthday gift of choice both to and from our kids—for longer than you might expect!
Free Cut Out Animals—printable .png images.
How much do we have in common with animals intellectually and emotionally? Interesting ideas here, including this:
“We are endowed with the mental powers and imagination to get under the skin of other species. The more we succeed, the more we will realize that we are not the only intelligent life on earth.”
7 times animals rescued humans. Peet had number 1 actually happen to him as his teacher watched from the shore.
Pet therapy—how animals and humans heal each other.
Most wonderful movie so far this year—tells the true story of a young girl in Mongolia who trains an eagle. Incredible scenery, amazing animals, engrossing story. What more could you want! Links here and here.
Three favourite picture books about sheep:
Three chapter books to read aloud:
Three books for adults:
From Eating Animals by Jonathon Safron Foer, this lovely thought:
‘Historians tell a story about Abraham Lincoln, that while returning to Washington from Springfield, he forced his entire party to stop to help some small birds he saw in distress. When chided by the others, he responded, quite plainly, ‘I could not have slept to-night if I had left those poor creatures on the ground and not restored them to their mother.” He did not make (though he might have) a case for the moral value of the birds, their worth to themselves or the ecosystem or God. Instead he observed, quite simply, that once those suffering birds came into his view, a moral burden had been assumed. He could not be himself if he walked away. Lincoln was a hugely inconsistent personality and of course he ate birds far more often than he aided them. But presented with the suffering of a fellow creature, he responded.’
And lastly, here's the link to our 'animals' category. Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
(Most Fridays we choose and expand a category from our 'explore more' page—we hope you enjoy taking a wander around the web with us!)
(Photo by Max Fulcher: our ram Brigham)
