This week we learned about turkeys during our science day! We had a child dress up as a turkey, and we talked about the various parts of the turkey. We taped a red scarf on the child’s chin to represent the “wattle” and talked about how the male turkey changes colors when he is scared, happy, or sick.
Next we discussed how a male turkey struts around to impress the females…
…he fans out his tail feathers like a peacock and drags his wings on the ground.
We discussed the differences between domestic and wild turkeys.
In one of our small groups, we talked about turkeys having 2 stomachs. We used water bottles to represent a turkey’s stomachs. We broke up graham crackers and put berries in the bottle, then poured water into the bottle (pretending it was the “gastric juice” breaking down the food)….
We watched the “gastric juice” soften the crackers before moving to the “second stomach.”
Next we poured rocks into the bottle because turkeys swallow rocks to help with their digestion in their second stomach, called the “gizzard”. The children shook up the bottle with the rocks and watched the rocks mash up the crackers.
The end results were not pretty…but digestion just isn’t a beautiful process. 🙂
In another small group, the children drew a diagram of a turkey…including the two stomachs.
