Friday, August 05, 2005

Lobster Tales



They had live lobsters going into the holding tank at Wal-Mart the other day! We got to watch the lady take them out of a cardboard box, rinse them off in a bucket of water, and then let them loose into the tank full of lobsters. It was a little bit scary. Um..for the kids..yeah. So we studied them through the clear sides of the tank and watched them wake up as the lady put them in the water. I had no idea that they shipped lobsters, alive, in a cardboard box. She said they come via priority air mail. Apparently they sleep in the box until they get put back into water. The box had white plastic trays stacked up in it. There were about 40 lobsters in that one box! All the lobsters just walked right over each other in the tank. Their little eye stalks were waving but they couldn't open their claws because of the bands on them. It's funny how once you start homeschooling everything becomes a learning experience. The girls were asking us questions about the lobsters and we were all in awe of how interesting their faces were up close. Danya couldn't believe that people actually eat them! Here is a link to some fun facts if you want to teach your kids about lobsters or just learn a little something yourself: http://www.kathimitchell.com/lobster.html At the top of the page are two links to find answers to the questions on the page. One of them is where I got the lobster photo for my blog.

2 comments:

Stephanie said...

Ah, I live in New England, a famous home for lobsters! :) I actually moved here from Ohio and the first time I ate one was here. It was a daunting experience. It's a lot of work!

Sally said...

oh how much fun. I used to love the lobster tank when I was little. My kids are similarly excited about ocean life....we found a brand new Smithsonian kit at a garage sale yesterday for 3 bucks, and it is a shark disection kit. They can't wait to do it LOL. It is plastic shark parts and then you pour a gelatin over it, and then scrape the gelatin away to 'disect' it. I wish we got to do cool stuff like that when I was little LOL.