Snakes

How did we wind up on snakes???? Well, this is a great example of how our projects evolve!

The children were once again playing with legos! (it's a good thing for legos, they are a great "open ended toy" that allows us to develop projects).  The children were making space ships.  Mateo said, "Our space ships are going to fly to the museum!"

We said, "Oh!  What are they going to see at the museum?"

He said, "Animals, like giraffes and zebras."

We started to take out materials to make the museum, and he got some clay to make the giraffe.  When we came around to check his progress on the giraffe, we found a snake!

He said, "Well, there isn't a giraffe at this museum, but there are snakes."

GREAT!!! So we have landed on snakes!  The children started talking about snakes, we brought out books to help our conversations.  We looked at a model of a snake, drew pictures of it, felt it and talked about what we felt, and how it looked.

To help us focus on the detail of the snake and its scales, we used tracing paper over our books to help us draw the shapes that made up the scales.  Some of the children called the shape of the scales "rectangles" and some called them "circles".

The teachers thoughtwe were going in the direction of shapes and texture, when all of a sudden, Alexandre said, "We should measure the snake to see how long it is!"

The children have been measuring so much since the preparations for the fall festival, and  it is great to see it evolving in our other projects!

Ricky thought he should measure his pencil ;0)

The children grabbed the rulers and stretched the snake out!

They put the ruler in the middle of the snake, and started counting..........

But our little genius Trevor said, "You have to put it at the end!"  ( Isn't it amazing to see them understand the measuring concept from our previous project?!)

They measured with one ruler, counted twelve inches, and then realized that there was still some snake left over!  "We need another ruler!" So, one of the children brought over another ruler to make the "measure" longer.

We counted all the way with three rulers, but that was still not long enough, so we brought out our measuring tape from our costumes.  We measured the snake to be 39 inches!!!  Now how do you write 39 inches???  The children that knew helped the ones who didn't.  And the teachers printed out the numbers 30 -39.  We are working on recognizing these numbers.

In the mean time, Kyleigh thought we should all remember her costume Cinderella.  So, she drew a picture of her and asked me to take a picture ;0)

We all started making snakes that measured out to 39 inches!  This was a great activity in our project.  Some children started making the "39 inch snakes" and other children wanted to make a snake, so the children would say, "you need to make it 39 inches!"  Every one used the measuring tape to make sure their paper was 39 inches.

The children were given the freedom to make their snakes however they wanted!  Most of the children used paint, markers, pencils, and crayons.........but not Kyliegh and Luke!

They made a "black snake" out of leaves and acorns!  How creative :0)

As we continued our study, the question came up of what snakes eat.  These were some of the answers:

Ricky:  They eat people.  They eat people in families.

Sam:  They eat bugs.

Carter:  They eat other snakes.

So, we watched a film to see what they do eat!  And we saw snakes eat eggs and mice!!!!

As we continued to talk about the snake, we started talking about the skin again.  We put up pictures of different animals to help us see the difference in textures and patterns of different animals skin.

We each took turns drawing the animals we put up to see what their skin, fur, patterns looked like.......

When we were done, some of the children started using clay to make snakes.  They used the clay tools to make marks in the clay to represent the texture in the skin and the scales.

We looked at a book to study the shape and details of the snakes.....

look at Will's snake with eyes and a tongue!!!!  He wanted to make sure I took a picture of him too......

Here is a preview of some of our snakes........

We are practicing spelling and writing snake, and writing our names.  We are really focusing on writing our names the way we are going to write it in "big school".  Only the first letter is upper case.

Here is Will's snake!  Look at the awesome texture from the scales, and how awesome his W is!!!!

Here is Alexandre's "big, huge, rattle snake"

All of our snakes are in our room drying and waiting for beautiful coats of paint!  Also, take a look at our drawings about what snakes eat!  You will be amazed at our attention to detail!

And we are excited to announce that Thursday, Nov. 4th, Kyle's mom has arranged for a pet snake to visit our class!!!!!!

This is going to be a great addition to our project and we cannot wait to see how the children react once they see the snake!