Deer Unit

Deer Unit
We've had deer are going through our backyard every day for the last two weeks.

So we decided to look up information on deer and find out what type of deer is in our backyard and how to tell the difference between the mule deer and the Whitetail deer:
1. Mule deer antlers are not single-pronged like Whitetail deer
2. ears on mule deer are larger
3. Mule deer have a black tip on there White tail, and the tails are always down
4. And mule deer jump and land on all 4 feet with straight legs, rather than two front and two back at a time


We also decided to experience trying to be a deer. So we had deer Olympics. Here are some of the facts we used to compare our habits to.

Deer leap
length of a van (Long jump)
10ft high (high jump)
Fawns play Leap frog (leapfrog game)

Deer eating
15 lbS of food during summer (weighing the amount of food we eat during the day)
2quarts water (trying to drink the same amount)
40 chews for lemon-sized food (chewing experiment to see how many choose it took to eat a cracker)

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We also talked about a Deers defense. I asked the kids how would your defends itself first? Their natural reaction was antlers. But really there are multiple ways a deer defend it self first offensively, then defensively... all are very Asians of using their body and senses.

1. Camouflage
2. Sight, Smell, sound
3. Run away and leap
4. Fight with antlers

You could do some fun games trying to play tag or find people blindfolded, or by people making sounds, or you can talk about camouflage and try to camouflage and play outside in your backyard or woods. Etc.