With snow storms finally moving away and Spring beginning to make a stronger bid to arrive, we enjoyed a interruption-free week for once! This allowed for us also in get back to our small groups and two groups took some time this week to gather together. The first of our groups to meet was the Animal group.
Revisiting with the children about our last meeting, it was noted what we remembered about our questions and even how we were going to find ways to investigate those questions.
“I remembered what I was curious about. Lizards. Why do they have a super long tongue.” -Nico
“I know why frogs have super long tongues. To catch flies far away!” -Margot
“I know that! I know that!” -Eleanor
“I know that too. And I also know why turtles have shells. Cause the shell, it’s their home and they wanna…they don’t know where their home is so it waddles with them.” -Nico
Some ideas this group came up with from our last meeting included books, watching nature movies and even writing a letter to a zoo. All of these ideas were shared back with the children and we began with exploring some books on our chosen interests of cats, lemurs and turtles. We wondered aloud with the children what they might discover differently about their animal or even if there would be something interesting to note in their books.
“I think I’m gonna make a picture to the zoo, not a letter.”
“What?! It looks like it lives in the rainforest.” (Turning the page to Ring Tailed Lemurs) “Now these are the lemurs I was talking about!”
“Hey that’s the picture on Mark’s book” (pointing to a familiar lemur photograph)
Liam
Nico quietly looks through his book. He points to a turtle’s shell on one of his pages.
Hmmm…a turtle’s shell. Is that something that’s interesting to you?
“There wasn’t a page that was interesting…there was a turtle…”
Was there something on a page that you learned something about turtles?
“Did you know turtles have sharks on their fins?”
Is that surprising to you?
Nico shakes his head, yes.
“Eggs hatch turtles?!”
Nico
“They are so cute! This one looks so cute!” -Eleanor
Ahhh!” -Margo
“We see a picture of a cat catching a mouse!” -Eleanor
“That’s the cat that’s the same as Granny has. It looks the same as Granny’s.” -Eleanor
“This one looks like a panther.” -Eleanor
“Yeah and this one looks like a plain kitty.” -Margot
“Hey, look! Look!” -Eleanor
“Oh!” -Margot
“Ah, she’s so cute.” -Eleanor
“And look at this!” -Margot
“This one’s sitting in a bowl!” -Eleanor
“Must be a cute little baby one.” -Margot
Margot and Eleanor share a book and comment back and forth to each other as each page is turned. Reaching the end of their book…
“How can this give us information if we don’t know how to read?” -Margot
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