From Pellets to Fossils

While I wait for my laptop to be "rehabilitated", I have decided to not wait any longer and post information on my husband's computer about what my students have been doing the past five weeks while I have been without my laptop. The children ended their animal study by examining owl pellets. Using gloves and masks, they pulled apart the pellets to discover heads and other boney parts of animals that the owls had consumed. The second graders had discussed and examined the food web of owls, small mammals, and rodents, tracing the food web all the way down to the plants or decomposing matter in the ground. They used a chart that displayed the skeletons of all the animals in their food web and then determined which animal their owl had eaten. The photo above shows two children working together as they analyze the contents of their owl pellet.

After our animal study we moved into prehistoric animals which included dinosaurs. We compared the size of dinosaurs to real objects that we would find in today's world. We discovered how fossils help us learn many things about dinosaurs, such as their shape, size, the food they ate, and how they moved. We used the Internet in the computer lab and a map of the United States to locate places throughout the United States where dinosaur bones have been found. We also located the various places in the United States where we can find natural history museums that have dinosaurs and dinosaur bones on exhibit. There are two places in Ohio. One is in Cincinnati; and the other is in Cleveland. We learned a new word, too. The new word is paleontologist. Now we understand the valuable kind of work this special scientist does.

We created our own fossils using play dough, sea shells, plastic wrap, plaster of Paris, and plastic milk bottles from our lunches. You can see the results above. Like an authentic "dig", we had to brush off some of the debris (play dough, in our case) to get to the fossil. This was only after we were able to cut off the plastic milk bottle from the play dough and the plaster. We, of course, recycled the cut up milk bottles.

The fossils created such a stir in our classroom that one child brought in a museum-quality shark tooth and a mastadon tooth to share with the class. Booth can be seen above.

Christmas and Birdfeeders

We finally heard from our German friends in Erlangen again. We found out that they had a Christmas party on their last day of school before Christmas break just like we did. We played games at our party while our German friends recited a poem about a tree for other children in the Franconian dialect. They worked very long and hard to get the dialect just right. The Franconian dialect is a language that is spoken in the southern states of Germany such as in Hesse (Hessen), Bavaria (Bayern), and Baden-Wurttemberg (Baden-Wurttemberg). We then got out our political map of Germany and located all three German states.

We also found out that we shared something else with the second graders in Germany. While they were making their birdfeeders, we were making ours. We only found out about this after we wrote to each other. Isn't it amazing how we think similarly even though we are thousands of miles apart?

The German children made birdfeeders out of clay while we made our birdfeeders out of plastic water bottles. The children in Erlangen took a slab of clay, rolled it out, and cut the clay into the shape of a tree using a paper template. Then they decorated it by making impressions/marks into the clay. You can see the process in the photos above. Next, the clay birdfeeders were put into a kiln to dry. Finally, the children placed a suet cake in the center. The clay birdfeeders turned out to be gorgeous!

We used plastic water bottles to make our birdfeeders. The reason we used plastic bottles was to keep them out of the landfill. We used a nail to poke a hole through the soft plastic and then used dowel rods which were cut to a certain size to push through the holes so that the birds could use the dowel rods as perches. We also strung wire through the bottom section of the bottle so that the bottle could be hung on a limb or a post. The final step was to open the lid of the bottle and pour bird seed inside and place the lid back on. The birdfeeders were then ready to go home. But the children and parents had to do one more thing before hanging them outside. They had to use a nail again to poke holes slightly above the perches so that the birds could get the seeds. You can see our birdfeeders above, too.