Leaf Exploring

I took all lower grade classes outside on Monday to explore the trees and falling leaves in our school yard. The sky was overcast and the wind was breezy. Hurricane Ida was moving closer to the coast.

We concentrated on looking at the different shapes, textures, and colors of the leaves. I quieted classes underneath trees to listen to the wind rustling through the leaves. Students noticed other bits of nature like small purple flowers underneath some dried leaves, seed pods, berries, ants, and caterpillars.

When we went back into the library, we spilled our leaves out on the floor, sorted them, and chose some to press in old library books -- I knew I was keeping those books for some reason! Maybe by next Monday, the leaves will be nice and pressed for a future project. I have in mind to try some of local artist Robin Whitfield's techniques that I learned about over the weekend.

Mrs. T. and I have been working with the lower grades through music, art, and literature connection classes to learn about fall, leaves, and trees. Our walk was a wonderful way to experience some of what we have been studying in the classroom.

Below is a slide-show of photos I took during our leaf field explorations:

School Yard Field Study

First grade students carefully gather prey snails and look for other creatures that live underneath the wood such as ants, spiders, roly-polys, and termites.

This is a small garden snail. Wolfsnails eat these and small slugs.

This small wolfsnail was wedged in the rim of a discarded bottle cap along with two garden snails. One first grade girl found 3 very small wolfsails during our field study on Thursday.

Students watch the snails after our snail-gathering adventure.

First graders at St. Therese Catholic School have been helping me care for and learn more about wolfsnails. I brought a large wolfsnail to school last week after my children found one at home. I knew that all of our students would want to see a live one because Sarah Campbell had visited our school last year to share her book Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator with students during an author visit.

This time, we were able to read the book and watch a live wolfsnail in action. On Tuesday, the wolfsnail was busy hunting and eating small, garden snails for most of the day. I didn't have many more garden snails left, so I took the first grade class outside to look for some in the school yard. We looked under rubber tires on the playground, old planks up against the back of the gym, cement blocks in the grass, and a few rocks--no snails! Finally, we found a huge colony of snails under a wood pile behind the cafeteria. Wow! There were so many there that we gathered a handful.

The bright and keen eyes of two first graders found another, small wolfsnail and an empty wolfsnail shell. They are keeping the small wolfsnail in their classroom for study and observation. On Thursday, we went back out to the wood pile for more prey snails and found 3 more small wolfsnails. I wonder what other amazing creatures and plants surround our school and exist side by side with us as we learn each day?

While all students at St. Therese have recently visited the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, last week's wolfsnail study was a perfect reminder that there are many opportunities to learn about nature, ecosystems, and the environment around our own school yard. This experience has me thinking about some future possibilities to do just that. Stay tuned!

Wolfsnail Sighting!

We have found two wolfsnails recently! My son found a dead one earlier in the week while he was walking in the neighborhood. You could still see the snail's body, but it was starting to dry up. I knew it was a wolfsnail because of the large rosy-brown shell and because the snail had a mustache-- just like Sarah Campbell described in her book, Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator, and during her visit to St. Therese in the fall. Because of her research and book, this was one creature I didn't have to look up on the Internet to find out more about it!

The second snail was alive, but it was resting deep inside its shell. Maybe it had just eaten another snail and was tucking in for the night. I found it on a dried maple leaf at the threshold of my front door when I called for my cat, looked down, and saw what I first thought was a crawfish body! The leaf and shell together looked like one, strange creature with legs-- a hermit crab? But on closer look, I was surprised to find the wonderful wolfsnail!

Even though I had already tucked the children into their beds for some bedtime reading, I got them up so that they could see it. "Wow! A live wolfsnail! Call Mrs. Campbell!" I told them I would put it on the blog in the morning. As the night darkened, we left it on some jasmine underneath a bush. When I went outside this morning, it was gone.

Winslow Emerged!

Winslow, the caterpillar I have been sharing with library classes since she was a baby caterpillar egg, emerged from her chrysalis during third grade's library class on Monday, May 4, at 10:05 am. I had just appointed an official "butterfly watcher" because I knew that it could happen at any time as the chrysalis was translucent and dark with a "bunched up" butterfly inside ready to get out. The chrysalis had started breaking apart at the golden ridge across the top.

As soon as my "butterfly watcher" reached the desk and started watching, she shouted, "Mrs. Owen, it's happening now!" We all rushed to see. AMAZING. There were "oohs and aahhs" all around.

The third grade had a butterfly in their classroom that emerged on Sunday. They were trying to feed it with an orange slice. Their classroom butterfly was a male. Winslow was a female. Female monarchs have thicker veins. Male monarchs have two black dots on their bottom wing along one of the veins.

We watched Winslow's wings grow and her body shrink. The photo above shows her prickly feet latching onto the wire of the container. She hung for most of the day to allow her wings to develop and dry.

These are Kindergarten students marveling at Winslow. The book is something new that I ordered for my family because we have loved raising these monarchs so much. It is by Joyce Sidman, one of my favorite children's poets. The illustrations by Beth Krommes, this year's Caldecott winning artist, are stunning.

My family, some friends, and I released Winslow late on Monday afternoon in the Fondren area of Jackson. She immediately flew up to the trees until we couldn't see her.

Poetry & Chrysalis

Students celebrated poetry by reading poems, writing poems, performing poems, and carrying poems in their pockets for National Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 30, 2009.

First grade students are raising at least three monarch butterflies that I shared with them from my own family's butterfly rescue project. We harvested the eggs from a field in Jackson. You can read more about it here. As of Thursday, they had one chrysalis, one large caterpillar, and one smaller caterpillar that still has some eating and growing to do. When I poked my head in the classroom on Thursday, students were reading Eric Carle's classic book The Very Hungry Caterpillar (which turned 40 years old this year) to their tiny friends. I love this.

At our last Reader's Theater Club meeting for 2009, students shared their "pocket poems," and divided into small groups to read, analyze, and perform sets of poems from This is Just To Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness by Joyce Sidman. This is one of my favorite recent books of poetry for children, and Sidman is one of my favorite poets.

The students in the Reader's Theater Club have been a joy! This was our last meeting for the year. We have had lots of fun, laughed, experimented, dramatized, tongue-twisted, pantomimed, read, discussed, read with expression, read some more, and acted a little silly from time to time! What could be better?