Week 39

 This week in Science we learned about phylogenies. Phuylogenies tell which species are more closely related to other species.You can go back and see which ones have a common ancestor. Some interesting things we learned is that hyenas are more closely related to cats than they are to dogs, even though they have a lot of similar traits. Also we learned about homologous and convergent traints. Homologous traits came from an ancestor common to both species but convergent traits evolved independently for that species. A common example of that is wings for bats and birds. They evolved wings independently, bats and birds don't share a common winged ancestor. Also, we learned that you have to go waaaay back in the history of carnivores to find a common ancestor for cats and raccoons. A long time ago there was a split and you have the cats & relatives (hyenas, ,mongooses, and linsangs) on one branch and the raccoons, skunks, bears, walruses, and dogs on the other branch. Pretty neat. 

We have both been working on practicing our compositions for our recital that is happening next week. Max's song is called Felice Pinguino which means Happy Penguin in Italian. Mali's song is called Baby Bluebirds. We had to perform them for people outside of our household to practice and help us get ready for the recital. 

In Geography we learned about Iraq and Kuwait. 

We went to the Hogle Zoo. It was a really nice day and there was a baby Colobus monkey and also a baby Titi monkey and a pretty young gorilla. So fun to see the babies.

This shows how the ancestor of whales used to have nostrils at the end of its nose and 

gradually it moved up to be on top of the head

All of these organisms evolved from a common tetrapod 

(four footed) ancestor and you can see the ways the bones have changed but still have the same bones. 

We had parent day for our last day of music class and mom told me 

to lay down so she could put all these instruments on me.

Mali at the zoo

Baby titi monkey

Rhino statue at the zoo

baby colobus monkey

Max compared to a black, grizzly, and polar bear

Mali compared to a black, grizzly, and polar bear

Noni "helping" Mali with her language arts practice. 

Maybe he knew it mentioned cats?