Identifying Insects
Happy Monday! It may be raining, but we have been enjoying a wonderful day in Flowers class!
MORNING ACTIVITIES
We began working on a new art project that will hang in our room for the rest of the year! For this, we will use the family photos that our parents have sent our teachers.
Matching our current theme of insects, we made a ladybug using construction paper and pipe cleaners. Afterwards, we pasted our family photo on the ladybug’s outer shell and put them on the restroom door so that we can see our families whenever we want and while lining up to wash our hands!
BOOK TIME
Today’s library leaders (Ei, Ke, and Sh) chose the book for Cameron to read us. They chose 100 Things About Planet Earth. It’s a super long book filled with interesting facts about the Earth. It would have taken all of our circle time to read it all.
Th: I think that’s too much! We need to get another one.
We chose to honor the library leaders book choice and found a way read the book. We chose to read about five things and asked five friends to give us each a number from 1-100, then read those parts of the book.
Mi chose 5, which said that the earth is often referred to as the “blue planet.” Where does it get that name from?
Th: Because I see oceans.
That’s right! This part of the book talked about the water on the earth and how much of earth is covered in undrinkable salt water.
Ke chose 1, which compared the difference in size between Africa and Greenland, depending on which map you look at. We learned that because the earth is a globe, no paper map can accurately represent the true size of each continent and country, respectively.
Hi chose 10, which showed that the canopies of trees in some forests do not touch each other. We were unsure why trees wouldn't want to touch another tree, but we had some ideas.
Ei: Because they are from different species.
Be chose 9, which talked about flowers in deserts that wait years for something. What could that be?
Re: The flowers are waiting for rain!
Th chose 6, which unfortunately showed the result of garbage ending up in the ocean. Some people found a whale that had died and after examining it, found plastic, ropes, and other garbage in its stomach.
Th: If the whale eats garbage, it will be sick.
Be: How do we take the garbage out?
Ke: If you go in the water, to take the garbage.
It reminded us of why we try not to use plastic at Ohana and why it’s important to throw things in the proper bin.
CIRCLE TIME
On Friday, we looked at a few different things inside containers and tried to figure out what they were. Today, we will find out!
We passed around the first container so that we could examine it again and give our opinions about what we thought it was.
Ty: Butterfly!
Like Ty, everyone else in the class thought that it was a butterfly. But then we looked at one of our books which showed, side by side, butterflies and something else that looks like butterflies but aren’t. If they aren’t butterflies, then what are they?
Th: Moths!
That’s right, we could see that although they look almost identical, there are some differences between the two. Butterflies have thin bodies, long antennas, rest with their wings up, and are generally brightly colored. Moths, on the other hand, have big bodies, short antennas, rest with their wings down, are generally colored in a way that matches their surroundings, and are hairy!
We took another look to see if we could figure out whether we had a butterfly or a moth.
Hi: It’s like a butterfly, but the down is bigger.
Th: It’s a butterfly because he doesn’t have that big thing.
While we tried to figure it out, we shared our experiences with butterflies and moths.
-Butterflies-
Ke: I saw in my home in Hiroshima.
Mi: In the park, I saw a white one. It was really cute!
-Moths-
Th: I found some in my bed. It was on the ceiling and my daddy grabbed it and got it out.
In the end, most of us still thought the what we have is a butterfly, while a few of us now thought that it is a moth. Cameron thought it was a moth, but wasn’t 100% sure.
We then passed around the second container…
Ke: This one is called stag beetle.
Sh: It’s a scissors bug! They can eat people!
Th: I think it’s a beetle. Their mouth is for eating insects. I don’t feel like they can eat people.
We looked at our book again and tried to figure out what kind of beetle it was. Most of us thought that it looked like the stag beetle in our book, but Be wasn’t so sure.
Be: I don’t think so because this goes this way and that goes that way.
We’re not certain that it is a stag beetle, but it looks very similar at least.
We passed around the final container which contained an animal's skin…
Ei: It looks dangerous because it’s green.
We mostly thought that it looked like a snake’s skin, but it could be from a different animal too!
Vieda found out some information about the skin from Shelley. She told us that it was from a snake that they found near Arisugawa Park.
Ty: I pass by Arisugawa.
Cl: Snakes!
Ke: I saw snake in Niigata. He has an ouchie tail!
Yu: I saw a snake and the neck is long.
Be: I saw a snake in the zoo, in the water, and it was coming to me, but I left.
We were glad to have found out more about the things that we first saw last Friday! We could figure out what they were on our own! We’re really good at identifying animals!
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Cl volunteered to read our question of the day first, and then Mi helped out.
Cl: Do you like, how about you?
Mi: Do you know where insects live?
Sh translated the question from English to Hebrew so that our friend Ri could join our conversation, and then told us all what Ri’s answer was.
Ri (via Sh): In a park. In the jungle.
Ke: In trees, water, your bed, the park, Ohana!
Hi: One time, I was a small insect in the toilet!
Th: In my bathtub!
Mi: On the Tv, I saw beetles and dragonfly.
Ri: I saw baby spider in my bed.
We decided that insects can be found just about anywhere, but why do they choose the places they do? We'll keep learning more!
Have a nice evening! We’ll see everyone again tomorrow morning!
Love,
Flowers XOXO