Titanaboa

titanaboa

Edward managed to find the Smithsonian channel on Netflix and watched a documentary about an extinct snake called a "titanaboa".  This has led to a week of spin off learning of myriad things.

Firstly, he learned that the snake was estimated to be 48feet long, so he wanted to make one that long himself.  We found a roll of paper that looked long enough and we set about measuring the correct length.  The rug in our hall is 10 feet long, we discovered, so we measured the paper out for 5 times the length of that, then removed the last 2 feet and "voila"!   A face was drawn and scales were copied on to it using the back of a ceramic tile which had a great texture to it and were used as a rubbing.  To make a miniature model of it (I drew the line at a full sized model) we had to purchase some Sculpy clay and it was coloured using Sharpie pens.

A few days later he tried to type the word into the search engine, but clearly typed Titanic instead.  This led him toa video of how to make a miniature model of the Titanic using Legos, which didn't take him too long to copy.  That was soon followed by a model 4 times as large and with more detail on, as was found in a book that he had in his room about the ship.  A rummage through the National Geographic archive soon found the edition commemorating the centenary of the sinking, and the Lego model was adapted to simulate the way that the ship broke apart as it sank.  A rummage through YouTube again found a documentary on the submarine that was used to find the wreckage.


Meanwhile Benjamin has become more interested in reptiles generally, and has starting looking at books on snakes, crocodiles, lizards and is busily telling me how dangerous they are.