Week of March 29th- April 2nd

This week we continued to study insects! We have a new terrarium in our Atelier that houses a variety of butterfly and moths at different stages of development. We have been closely observing the Painted Lady Butterflies, since they arrived as caterpillars. Because we are authors and scientists, we have been creating our own Butterfly Life Cycle books. So far, we have observed and documented the larvae stage and the chrysalis stage.On Thursday, we observed that one of the chrysalises started moving. We set up a video camera in case the butterfly emerged when we weren't watching. On Friday, we were excited to here that two of the butterflies had emerged from their chrysalis! We watched the amazing video of the butterfly cracking open his chrysalis and slowly spreading his wings on our big screen. (The Tuesday/Thursday class will get to here the news and see the video on Tuesday!)



Here is our video of the Painted Lady Butterfly emerging from the chrysalis:



This week we combined our imagination, creativity and knowledge of insects to make our own insects using materials from the Creation Station. Students gathered materials to create an insect, remembering to include the body parts we learned insects have: head, thorax, abdomen, 6 legs, 2 antennae and 2 compound eyes! The students enjoyed using unique materials to create their very own insects.

March 11, 2010

Ms. Laurel is back today. She will be with us full time from now on. We are so excited she is back! Ms. Katie's final day is Friday the 19th.

We had a math graph today.



Ms. Laurel ran a special ladybug math center. We roll a dice, and then put an equal number of spots on a ladybug as dots on the dice. This helps us with our number sense and one-to-one counting skills.



Justin showed us the x-ray of his broken arm. We learned that an x-ray is a big camera that can see inside your body. It was fascinating to see Justin's bone INSIDE his body and connect that to the insect exoskeleton we have been learning about. Justin will soon have a hard cast on that will act just like an exoskeleton to protect his arm!


We became acquainted with our new stick bug friend. We took a vote to decide on the name and we voted on Spiderman.


We held Spiderman, felt his exoskeleton, counted his legs (6) and observed his eyes. We were fascinated by his amazing camouflage.

Naomi's mom visited today and helped us play with our walking sticks!

Some of us drew pictures of Spiderman and other insects.




In atelier Tuesday and today, we played with noodles in the sensory table. We honed our fine motor skills as we used tweezers to pick up individual noodles and our math observational skills as we compared the lengths of the noodles.



We also explored in a new insect terrarium. At first, we couldn't see any insects. Some of us thought the bugs were so well camouflaged that we couldn't find them. Other Entomologists thought they were hiding under the wood and soil. As we dug, we found worms, pill bugs, slugs and ants. We studied each insect. Only the ants were insects, the rest were bugs.



In atelier, we started labeling some big bug posters we made. We labeled "Beetle" and all of the beetle's body parts. We write the sounds we hear and use our alphabet sheets to remind us of how to write our letters.



This afternoon we practiced our writing on the whiteboards.





Remember: Conferences are next week!

March 10th, 2010

Have we been busy lately!

Last Friday, we became acquainted with our new stick bug friend. We took a vote to decide on the name and we voted on Hunter.


We held Hunter, felt his exoskeleton, counted his legs (6) and observed his eyes. We were fascinated by his amazing camouflage.





Some of us drew pictures of Hunter and other insects.




We are still learning about insect body parts. On Monday, we worked on our Insects Have Exoskeletons and Insects Have Compound Eyes poster. We cut out pictures of exoskeletons and pasted them to our poster.

Some of us drew pictures of compound eyes to add to our poster.

Today, we had music with Ms. Shelley. Here is a video of us singing one of our favorite songs about nature.

We continue to sing our Head-Thorax-Abdomen song. It helps us remember the body parts of insects so we can identify them when we find them. Here is a video of us singing about insect body parts.

In atelier today, we played with noodles in the sensory table. We honed our fine motor skills as we used tweezers to pick up individual noodles and our math observational skills as we compared the lengths of the noodles.




We also used the play dough and pipe cleaners to create bugs. Here is a video of Sammy explaining about the insect he created.

We also used the projector to trace insects. As we traced we noticed the body parts of the insects, including head, thorax and abdomen and six legs. We painted our insects and will label them after they dry.

We also explored in a new insect terrarium. At first, we couldn't see any insects. Some of us thought the bugs were so well camouflaged that we couldn't find them. Other Entomologists thought they were hiding under the wood and soil.



As we dug, we found worms, pill bugs, slugs and ants. We studied each insect. Only the ants were insects, the rest were bugs.


This afternoon we started labeling some big bug posters we made. We labeled "Worm" and "crop" on the worm poster. We write the sounds we hear and use our alphabet sheets to remind us of how to write our letters.


It was Hudson's birthday. Happy birthday, Hudson! We love you!

March 4th, 2010

Today we learned about exoskeletons. We already explored how insects have six legs, and now we know about how insects have "bones" on the outside of their bodies. We felt our own arms and they felt squishy and spongy. We could feel hard bone through our arms. Then we felt a "model" of an insect. The outside was hard but when we opened the "insect" it was soft and squishy inside!





We decided that an exoskeleton was important for an insect because if a human stepped on an insect, the exoskeleton would protect it. Here is a video of our observations.

We also made a poster called "Insects have exoskeletons!" We used our fine motor skills to cut our pictures of exoskeletons and paste them on our poster. Some artists added their own pictures of exoskeletons to our poster.





Our big buddies came today! We illustrated the stories that we co-wrote during their last visit. We are real authors with important stories to tell!





We built obstacle courses with our big buddies again! We loved exercising our bodies and honing our gross motor skills to maneuver through the obstacle course.




We also ate lunch in our outdoor classroom! It was so fun visiting with our friends while enjoying the sun.



We also found a worm under a log during lunch. We observed that he had no legs, so he couldn't be an insect. He also was soft and had no exoskeleton. We were worried that he would get splinters in the log so we moved him to a safe place in the garden.