Can you jump as far as a kangaroo preschool science land animals biology

How far does a kangaroo jump

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Hi, this is future Ticia 2020, and I’m about to tell you one of my biggest parenting failures when my kids were little. But first, this little kangaroo unit all started because my kids were enthralled by the kangaroo and have been jumping around pretending they were kangaroos.  ‘How far does a kangaroo jump’ fit in well with our homeschool preschool and our proto-kindergarten lessons as a science lesson.

kangaroo science lesson

My biggest parenting mistake of the preschool years

We had started to study animals in Australia, and they were particularly interested in the kangaroo, and like any good homeschool mom I thought, “Let’s make a kangaroo unit, and I’ll find videos for that.” I gathered the kids around my computer and because they were really excited about how kangaroos traveled by jumping, I hopped, see what I did there?, onto YouTube. This was in the days when YouTube was new and wild, and it wasn’t the well-oiled search machine it is now.

I typed in “Kangaroo jumping” and clicked on the first link that came up.

We were then treated to a 15-second video of a very drunk NAKED Australian man pretending to hop like a kangaroo. I could not close my computer screen quickly enough.

Thankfully, 10 years later, they have absolutely no memory of this. I, however, learned my lesson and now preview videos before I show them to the kids.

Kangaroo Videos you can watch with your kids

Future Ticia 2023 here, when Future Ticia 2020 updated this post she really should have shared a few kangaroo videos you could show your kids.

Wow, ummm….. apparently even Future Ticia 2023 is very glad she was googling this without her adult kids around (only slightly sarcastic, there are still some very weird videos that come up about people boxing kangaroos and apparently a YouTube channel called Kangaroo that make Roblox videos of questionable quality).

I’m also going to include a clip from the Wild Kratts episode about kangaroos.

What I’m learning is when you have embedded in too much adult beverages or alternative medicine, you should not go looking for a kangaroo.
How far does a kangaroo jump preschool science lesson

Kangaroo picture books

Because what is a homeschool unit study without some books?

  • A Kangaroo Joey Grows Up– I love this series of books, they give just enough information to keep younger kids interested but aren’t so light on information that you feel like it was a waste of reading
  • A Kangaroo’s World– Sadly I think this particular book/series is out of print, but if you can find it, it’s an awesome resource for the general life of kangaroos

And to keep the fun going I picked up a few fiction books:

Side note, we also made a kangaroo pocket to go with Katy No Pocket.

How far can a kangaroo jump?

Can you jump as far as a kangaroo preschool science land animals biology kindergarten

Now, on to our experiment.  We were intrigued by how far a kangaroo could jump and how far can we jump.  So first we made a hypothesis, “that means an idea you can test” (thank you Dinosaur Train for teaching my kids about this, now they don’t really use the word right, but that’s not your fault).

measuring how far a kangaroo jumps

First, we drew a line to show where we thought we could jump.  Ummm, my kids think they can jump amazingly far.  You can see Superman over there at the end of our driveway.  He was convinced he could somehow magically jump into two places.  Batman thought he would jump the entire length of that line.  Princess is somewhere halfway to the next neighbor in her hypothesis.
Well, we lined up next to our starting line and everyone jumped.

measuring distances jumped


Here they are all lined up to try jumping again.  As you can see no one was correct in their hypothesis.  I was the closest and I fell short as well.
So, next, we tried a running jump.  That didn’t work out so well.  I tried to show them what to do for a running jump, but you’ll see it in the video.  They really treated it more as a race.  So after one more thing, we changed it to just a straight racing game.

 

Here’s the final thing we did for this little experiment/learning activity.  We compared the relative jumping distances.  Princess jumped the shortest, then Batman and Superman next, then Mommy, and then a kangaroo’s jumping distance way out there (according to the book we read kangaroos can jump up to 30 feet).

comparing jumping distance to how far a kangaroo jumps


They’re standing order is Superman at the kid’s distance, Batman where Mommy jumped, and Princess way out there to where a kangaroo would jump.

More hands-on learning with your kids


Comments

8 responses to “How far does a kangaroo jump”

  1. An Almost Unschooling Mom Avatar
    An Almost Unschooling Mom

    What a great, active project. And, I'm still laughing about your YouTube adventure – very funny, but too true, YouTube can be a tricky place to navigate!

  2. I LOVE this activity – it's just so perfect for this age and incorporates so much – scientific method, predicting, measuring and learning a thing or two about kangaroos. I will definitely repeat it when we get to Australia. Thanks for sharing!

  3. I love that you were willing to adapt as necessary as you went to truly make this a fun lesson for them. Great job! =)

  4. Great Idea! I am always trying to incorporate exercise and learning.

  5. I love love this activity too! And we will definitely incorporate it when we study kangaroos and koalas in Australia.

    I linked the living/nonliving post…I hope I did it right!

  6. This is so cute! I love their running and jumping! hahaha they crack me up!

    This is something I am going to remember, Selena and I will have to do this activity next time we can get outside!

  7. What a fun idea! We recently did an impromptu guess how far you can jump thing in our living room but I never thought of making it into a science experiment. I may have to do that!

    Too funny about YouTube! I used it for our science sunday this week too and was worried I might come across something bad. Luckily I didn't since C was sitting with me!

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