We had a lot of pets in our classroom this week.
Our butterflies emerged from their chrysalis's earlier this week. We were able to see "the baby" butterfly right after she broke free. She emerged sometime during large group and we were able to watch her dry her wings. We only kept the butterflies for a couple of days before we released them. We read about the monarch butterflies heading to Mexico and the kids were waving good bye and saying, "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go to Mexico". I didn't have the heart to tell the kids they were not monarch butterflies, at least they were orange, black and white! We also had some "crabby" friends for the week. We set up a habitat for square back and fiddler crabs. The "feeder" was responsible for misting them every day and the kids enjoyed trying to find where they were hiding. They were released on Friday to find their families back in the marsh. And finally, Fishy McFisherson is in our class and will stay with us for the rest of the year. If you would like to take him home on May 19th, e-mail me! I am happy to give him to the first one who claims him.
0 Comments
We practiced being buzzy bees this week by pollinating flowers.
We tied felt bees to our hands (thank you Mrs. Johnston for cutting them out) and searched for "food" (beads) inside a paper flower. I also put glitter in the flower to represent the pollen. Our bees flew from flower to flower gathering food and the glitter stuck to their little felt legs (and our hair, finger nails, clothes...and probably tracked all the way to your house!). Once we came inside, we talked about how the pollen sticks to the bees so the bees can take it from flower to flower. We still have a group of "bees" who haven't had a chance to pollinate yet. Hopefully we can find time next week to make it up to them! Our favorite STEAM adventure this week had to be our scavenger hunt. The students formed "teams" (they grouped themselves in the classroom...but outside was a bit of a free for all!) and headed outside to find bugs, leaves and flowers. Oh - and magnetic surfaces. Why? Because I wanted each student to have a "job" and a tool.
Leader: clipboard to record findings Navigator: Binoculars to find their way Investigator: magnifying glass to find items Engineer: magnet wand to detect metal They had a blast! Below you will find what happened when one of the students found metal embedded in the sidewalk. We were fascinated (and completely took over the walkway for about 15 minutes). This week we discussed pets and observed a couple of unique "pets" in our classroom. One of our students found a baby turtle and shared him with the class before setting him free. We had a long discussion about why wild animals can be observed, but only temporarily. We also read about Slider's pet chipmunk. Slider was sad to see his pet go, but knew he would be happier playing with his friends.
We also have "worms" (aka caterpillars) in our room. Amazon fulfilled the order about a week quicker then they promised, so we have been watching them grow all week. Next week we will learn about butterflies and hopefully the caterpillars will cooperate and form their chrysalis during the week :) Again, the butterflies will only be a temporary "class pet" and we will set them free soon after their wings are dry! |
Archives
June 2019
|