Hillsborough County
5339 County Road 579
Seffner, Fl., 33584-3334
SUN 541-5519
(813) 744-5519
FAX (813) 744-5776
[email protected]
http://hillsborough.extension.ufl.edu/
Prepared by: Mary A. Keith, PhD, LD/N
Food, Nutrition and Health Agent
email:[email protected]
April, 2007
A Trip to the Zoo
If you have a
chance, taking your child
on a trip to the Zoo is a
great idea. In the Spring
the trees and bushes are
getting new green leaves,
flowers are starting to sprinkle more colors,
and the animals are getting more active. The
brighter sun and warmer weather seems to
wake everything up.
Even if you can’t take you child to a Zoo
you can point out different animals around you
and in magazines or newspapers. No matter
where you live there are birds. They might be
pigeons, or they might be wild birds coming
back from their winter migration. (Migration is
something like a winter vacation for us. Birds
travel south to warmer places when the
weather is too cold for them here.) Or there
might be a show about different animals on TV
that you could watch with your
child.
As you and your child see
different animals or their
pictures, talk about what they
eat and how they eat it.
Giraffes are famous for their long necks.
Can your child guess why they need such long
necks? Let them try to guess. It’s because
they eat leaves from trees. They need their
neck to reach their lunch!
But they also have a very special
tongue. A giraffe’s tongue is very, very tough.
Let your child guess why a giraffe might need a
tough tongue. It has to be tough because the
trees they eat for lunch have lots of thorns!
They have to wrap their tongue around the
leaves and pull them away from the thorns.
Ouch!
Ask your child to tell you about what
foods they can think of that are rough or
scratchy on their tongues. Do they like them or
not? Maybe they
like crunchy potato
chips but don’t like
the fuzzy skin on a
fresh peach.
Zebras for example look very much like
horses with lots of stripes. And they eat grass
like horses do. You don’t want a zebra to bite
you because they have strong teeth to cut all
that grass. What does your child think about
Elephants eat
leaves and grass
too. But they use
their noses to help
them eat. Instead of
eating grass all day long? Or hiring a zebra to
cut your grass? Zebras are not like us,
because the only food they need all their life is
grass. We need lots of different foods.
Hillsborough County Extension is a cooperative service of Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners and the University of Florida.
The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Employment Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and
other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation,
marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A. &
M., University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating.
using their teeth or tongues like other animals,
or using forks and spoons and fingers like
people do, elephants use their trunks. They
can curl the end of the trunk small enough to
pick up a peanut and put it in their mouth.
Or they can use
their trunk to pull a
whole branch off a tree
and put all of it in their
mouth. That can get
pretty messy, with
leaves sticking out in
all directions! Ask your
child to tell you how
they can eat so they don’t make messes on the
table.
Here are some foods you can make with
your child that remind us of these zoo animals.
You can make all of the or just one. Be sure to
let your child help you make them. It’s
important that they learn how to do things
safely in the kitchen and you’re the best
teacher for them.
Zebra-wiches
What you need for each person:
1 slice of white bread
1 slice of brown (whole wheat) bread
1 slice of yellow cheese
1 slice of low-fat ham
1 lettuce leaf, washed and patted dry
Mustard and mayonnaise
Plastic knife
Cut the sandwich in half to see the zebra
stripes and the green grass (lettuce) that it
likes to eat. Eat your zebra-stripes sandwich!
Giraffe Stretchers
What you need for each person:
Half a hot dog bun
Peanut butter
Raisins
A little shredded lettuce
Plastic knife
What you do with your child:
Spread the hot dog bun with peanut butter.
(Giraffes are light and dark brown, like peanut
butter and raisins)
Put a little of the chopped lettuce at each end.
(One end is the green grass the giraffe is
standing on, the other are the leaves it is
reaching for.)
Arrange the raisins to look like a giraffe.
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What you do with your child:
Put the slice of white bread on a plate.
Spread some yellow mustard on it.
Put the slice of ham on top.
Put the slice of cheese on it.
Put the lettuce leaf on top.
Spread the mayonnaise on the brown bread.
Put the bread on top of the lettuce.
Eat your giraffe!
Remember to eat the green leaves and green
grass too!