A Special Thank you to Mrs. Goldstein's Class at CP

A recent, hasty and quite productive book drive at CP and LB had some wonderful results (more on that in the next post). This movie is a special thank you to Mrs. Goldstein's class at CP who collected about 40 books for the children of Akony Avoko. They sent along a nice letter with some wonderful questions and this is a video response to that letter.

Note: 

Why didn't Victor mention lemurs? 

Well, for the same reason you wouldn't mention polar bears as an animal you see in America. Polar bears don't live in New Jersey, but there are some in America. Lemurs do live in Madagascar, but not where Victor and the other children of Akany Avoko live, so they don't see them unless they go to the zoo.

Madagascar Morning Meeting: Part Deux

Welcome back to the Madagascar Morning Meeting. We have a few hundred new visitors this time, because the wonderful students and teachers at CP are joining in this time too. Glad to have you all here. Follow along and have a good time. 

Greeting and Activity:

Normally, the greeting and the activity are two different things. But we will dare to combine the two and see what happens. Language is a tricky thing here. Very few people speak English. A lot of people speak French. Everyone speaks Malagasy. But they don't all speak the same Malagasy. There are over 20 different versions. Some are only a little different. Some are like a whole new language. All this means there are a heap of ways to say hello. 

Here are five different ways people say hello in Madagascar (not the only five, but five). Click on the movie below for help pronouncing these little mouthfuls:

Salama (sa-lam-a)

Bonjour (bon-jure)

Akory be (a-kor-a bay)

Tonga soa (toon-ga soo-a)

Salut (sa-loo)

And here's the game. Two versions actually.

K-2 Version: 

Play the telephone game using one of the five ways of saying hello. The teacher starts to make sure it pronounced correctly (or close to correctly). Pass it down the line and see what comes out the other end. Try again with a different way.

3-5 Version: 

If you are not in a circle, get yourselves in one and stand up. One person starts and turns to a neighbor and says hello in any of the above five ways. Easy so far. Now that neighbor has to turn to her neighbor and say hello in a different of the five ways. That's it. If you repeat the word the person just said to you. You are out. If you say hello in any way that is not one of the five ways, you are out. Keep playing until there is only one language lover left.

Sharing:

Well, the whole darn blog is about sharing, so scroll on down and have a look see. The last two posts have lots of cute animals, some furry, some not. There is even a little homemade movie of some fascinating lemurs. There's a post about food. One about skeletons. Oh, who am I kidding? You just want to see lemurs, so just go down a bit and enjoy. 

Goodbye:

Last time we learned how to say hello in Malagasy. This time we will learn goodbye. But why learn to speak Malagasy from some vazha (Malagasy for "white guy") when you could learn it from an actual Malagasy. Click on the video to get a short but proper language lesson from my friend Dr. John (just for the record, he is not an actual doctor, but it is a great nickname). 

Have a wonderful summer. I miss you all very much. The blog will be up and running all summer (your summer, our winter), so please check back in for life and lessons from Madagascar.

Take care and veloma.

The Free Lemur (Photos)

"Admit it. You want to pet me don't you?"

I'm a science teacher of my word, so here are your free lemur photos. 

I won't bore you too much with words this post. However, there is a brief but quite informative movie at the end you should most certainly watch. For now, here are some wonderful lemurs and just a few words to go with each. Enjoy.

Lemurs have territories and they don't always like to share those territories. This golden sifaka is wearing a very fashionable radio collar, so scientists can keep track of what territory he and his family are in.

You might like a tasty hamburger, but lemurs are vegetarians. And most of them love fruits most of all. This one is quite literally going out on a limb for some delicious juicy fruit.

And when the fruit is all gone, they simply leap from limb to limb until they find some more.

Look, Mom! That teddy bear's alive! 

This brown wooly lemur is a night owl. Well, not an actual owl, but you get the point.

Like most lemurs, the brown wooly lemurs live in a group. Their groups are small though: just mom, pop and the kids.

These indri lemurs are special for lots of reasons. For one thing, instead of long tails, they have stubby thumb-sized tails. For all the other things, play the movie at the bottom of the post.

"Wait! I think I hear humans." 

"Where are they?"

"Ah, ha! Found them."

"All their cameras and funny-colored button-up fur make me nervous. I'm out of here."

Click the play button to see and hear the indri lemurs in action. And free vanilla beans for life if you correctly pronounce the word that comes before Madagascar. Good luck with that.

Read this Post and Win Free Lemur...

...Photos. Sorry, I can't give away an actual lemur. They are very hard to mail. No matter how you lick the stamps, they just fall right off the fur.

A few weekends ago, we were lucky enough to visit several forests and parks near Andasibe. They were packed full of lemurs and other wonderful creatures. Just to make sure you come back, I will start with the other wonderful creatures. 

In a few days, I will unleash the lemur (photos that is).

Sadly, a lot of the forests in Madagascar have been cut down or burned, but this is one of the lucky forests that has escaped. The sciency way of saying that is "primary forest". Or to be even more specific, it is a "primary montane rain forest".

It is full of giant ferns and palms. It looks like a perfect place for a pet dinosaur.

Or perhaps a giant grub instead.

See? Big.

At night the forest comes alive with all kinds nocturnal thingamabobbers like tiny lemurs, funny-nosed bats, crawly insects and marvelous chameleons like this fellow. Well, most of the chameleons are not nocturnal, but they are much easier to find at night. A shining flashlight turns their eyeballs into two little headlights. All their wonderful camouflage makes them very hard to find during the day when they are out hunting insects and other tasty prey. Look at the special feet that are perfect for latching onto twigs.  But they're terrible for strolling on the ground. 

This is a baby Parson's chameleon. Some people think it is the largest chameleon in the world. It lives about 7 years, so this one still has time to grow into an  an 18 inch long giant (without the tail).

This is Gigantis madagascarius. Otherwise known as the goliath bird-eating chameleon.

Ok, not quite. Unless of course the birds are very, very tiny.

But the birds aren't tiny. And some of them do indeed like to eat chameleons. That is if they can find them. This one looks a whole lot like a branch and not a tasty morsel.

What sticky-footed fellow is hiding behind that leaf?

The striking Madagascar day gecko, that's who. He's on the hunt for some insects.

Like these guard termites who make sure no intruders try to break into their home sweet termite mound. Intruders have a nasty habit of tracking mud all over the place. Oh yeah, and eating everyone too.

Hey, it's a little rolly polly (pill bug).

Partly right. It is a roly-poly. But it is not little. This is a smaller and dead one. All the live ones rolled up into ping-pong-sized balls as soon as I touched them.

A wonderful frog. A petite one too. She could use a penny as an umbrella (that is if the penny had a handle and she an opposable thumb).

Nice spider! Not so fast. Count those legs again. It only has six legs. Its two antennae are colored to look like two more legs. That big abdomen is quite spider like too. But its other two main body parts aren't. Spiders only have two main body parts. Insects have three. So what is it? I have no idea. But it's not a spider.

Speaking of spiders. Here is an unfortunate moth stuck in spider web. Let's take a closer look.

Hum, that's funny? This moth has eight legs. That was probably the last thought of a lot of insects right before this thorn spider wrapped them up and ate them.

And, if you aren't careful, you could get wrapped up too. This web is taller than I am. Yikes.

And this is the home of some very special spiders. There are over 40,ooo different spider species in the world. And almost all of them prefer to be alone. The only time one adult spider hangs out with another adult is to make babies or to eat the other one for lunch. But there are about 20-30 spider species that do like to hangout together. They all help build a giant web/nest kind of thing and when some unlikely insect gets caught in the web. Dozens or even hundreds of spiders come bounding in from all sides to eat it or wrap it up for a snack later.

My wife Cindy and I after a great day of lemur and non-lemur spotting.

Don't worry, the lemurs are coming. Check back in a few days.

Read-Aloud Anyone?

For the benefit of Ms. Kirby's 5th grade class at LB and/or any other class and/or any nieces and/or nephew who may stop by the blog, here is a movie of me reading a wonderful book from England entitled The Gruffalo. Click and enjoy.

(No, it's not a science book, but remember I came from the land of third grade teachers before moving to the lab.)

Sorry, this is the small, low-quality version. If our connection improves, I will replace it with the high quality version.