Bugs!

Do you ever think that you pay too much for the field trips that your students get to attend during the school year?  I am not sure what the price of having the entomologist, Camilla, come to our classroom with a container full of interesting small crawling creatures was but I hope your children told you how AMAZING our morning was!

Camilla was so patient with the students and in a very respectful way, encouraged them to allow these tiny creations of God, to be admired and enjoyed.  She started with a roly poly, and kept telling the children that it had the cutest little face!  Its cousin in Alberta would be a woodlouse.

She gushed over this millipede and explained what the difference was between this creature and a centipede.  Does your child remember how to tell the two apart?

I don't remember the proper name of this cockroach, but the children will tell you that it has a face just like Darth Vader and that it smelt like bananas!

The children got to see the shed exoskeleton of the tarantula, which has a special name starting with the letter /e/ that I could not find on the internet.  They got to see a small one that was one and a half years old and then five year old Buttercup was brought out for a little hand holding.  The children were fascinated!

I can't remember the correct name of this special guy!  He is usually found underground and those pinchers in front are actually meant for digging.  The creature is almost blind and those really long feelers detect vibrations to that it can move about.  It is not an insect as it only has two body parts and it would be related to both a scorpion and a spider.

What fun to see the students embrace (well....hold their hands out flat) these wonders of creation!

This scorpion's name is Mr. Grumpy and the students got to watch him move a bit inside of his traveling container.

This is the dark wing beetle....

and this is the pupa of a dark wing beetle.  The students could see the beetle inside moving, as it was going through its metamorphosis.

Wonderful morning.....worth every penny!  Thank you parents for allowing us to bring Camilla and her bucket of friends into our classroom.

We have been exploring another small crawling and flying creature this week, but it is a mammal.

It is the only mammal that flies.  We have been using books, videos and this fictional story to learn new information about bats.

Today, we asked the question about how the main character, the little fruit bat named Stellaluna, changed as the story progressed.

We also looked at the main important points from the story that highlighted the differences between bats and birds....finding and eating bugs, sleeping and flying at night.  We tried to look at the 'point of view' of the important characters in the story.  We want to recognize that the point of view were different but also that it is alright to have a different point of view than others.  For a new concept, the students did very well!

I am so proud of their willingness to try to 'stretch their brain'!