Gymnastics- Tuesday 1st June

This term Room 5 along with the other Rata classes are participating in gymnastic classes at Olympia Gymnasium. Each week I am attempting to take photos of the children taking part in a variety of activities. Unfortunately my camera or maybe the operator of the camera is struggling to take good action photo's, today the children had a go on the beam and instead of getting pictures of empty space I actually captured some children. They had a great time today on the beam, trampoline and doing forward rolls and head stands on the floor.

Friday 27th May

The children began delving into a large assortment of National Library books about insects and spiders. Jeherson became fascinated with a page showing spiderlings and a spider with an egg sac. We talked about how the spider lays it eggs and protects them in an egg sac which it makes out of its silk. We had a look on the internet and found some images including hundreds of
spiderlings hatching from an egg sac, a spider finishing weaving her egg sac and a short clip of a wolf spider which carries all of its spiderlings on its abdomen.
Taylor found a picture of a spider moulting and asked, ‘How do spiders get their old skin off and get their new skin on’. This began a discussion about how humans have a skeleton or bones inside their body, where spiders and insects don’t, their bones are on the outside, this is called an exoskeleton. As the spider grows the exoskeleton becomes too tight and a new, larger exoskeleton grows beneath. We also talked about how our skin, bones and muscles all grow together as we get older but that we also have many layers of skin and that the top layer does come off but we don’t notice it because it doesn’t come off all at once. We watched a time lapse camera clip of a rose hair tarantula moulting. It lay on its back and the abdomen split and then the spider looked like it shook and pushed off its old legs, lastly the Cephalothoraxes came off and voila!
During poetry today the children had to illustrate their poem called ‘Flies for me’ by Jill
Eggleton, it is about a spider and what he does and doesn’t like to eat. I let the children create these pictures with no input from me but as I went around each child they were telling me about the features their spider had and I was amazed to see the accuracy with which some of the children can now draw a spider or insect, it was great to see them transferring new
understandings.

Jessica
‘My spider has pedipalps and Fangs.’
‘It has 8 eyes, two of them are on the back.’
Jessica also has 2 body parts and the right number of legs coming off the Cephalothoraxes.

Jeherson
Jeherson has drawn a great insect for his spider to eat, it had 3 parts with the legs and wings coming off the thorax. Jeherson has shown a noticeable size difference between the spider and the insect, which is quite an interesting observation as
larger insects can be overcome by smaller spiders.

Taylor
Taylor pointed to the spiky pink triangle on the bottom of the spider and told me…
‘My spider has a spinneret, it can make webs’

Finn
Finn has obviously enjoyed catching bugs and has drawn his spider in a container.

Shawn
Shawn’s spider is dangling, it has two body parts and 8 legs.

Sabrina
Sabrina’s spider is using its silk to dangle an insect it caught.

Monday 24th May

On the weekend I went to the pet shop and brought some larvae and eggs of both fruit flies and Blow flies, so the children will be able to see a little bit of the life cycle. We have put them in an aquarium so that we can watch them. The fruit flies that we have are called wingless even though they have wings and appear to fly which the children and I both found puzzling. I also brought in a large wire spider that the children are going to papier mache, we will take regular photos of our progress. This afternoon Tim, Daniel, Mikayla and Caitlin from 8B7 visited us and showed us how to put an ant farm together, they also taught us things about ants while they were doing it. We put the ant farm together and then mixed sand and garden soil together and poured it into the farm. The 8B7 children taught us that we should only put ants from one colony in the farm and that they like to eat sweet things like fruit and even lollipops. The ants like to keep their living area clean and if any ants die they will move them out into the magnifying glass which is attached to the farm. Now all we need is some ants, then we need to keep the soil part of the farm dark and let the ants do their thing and hopefully we will see them build some tunnels.

Thursday 20th May

This afternoon during ChIL time some of the children helped me build the web of an orb web spider. While looking for information on how spiders can walk up walls we found a step by step animation of how a spider builds its web. This can be found at the site ‘How stuff works!’ http://animals.howstuffworks.com/arachnids/spider.htm/printable. I talked to the children about why spiders have webs
Taylor: Spider make webs for a house.
Jessica: It’s a dinner plate.
The animation had notes that go with it that let us know that the spiders lay both sticky thread and non sticky thread , I asked the children why?
Sabrina: The sticky web is to catch its dinner.
Jessica: The non sticky thread is for the spider to crawl on, it would get stuck on the sticky bits.
The green string is the sticky thread, the blue is the non-sticky.

Wednesday 19th May

Today we had a bug expert visit from Team Kowhai, our year 2 team. Matthew brought along a collection of bugs sealed in resin that he has been collecting as part of a magazine series called ‘Real Life Bugs and Insects’. At this stage he has 21 insects and 1 spider. He showed and passed around each bug and told us a bit about them. Matthews favourite bug in the collection so far is the Rhinoceros Beetle. It was very large and has silver markings. We asked Matthew whether he goes bug hunting at home and he said that he did. He looks under rocks and in the dirt and puts the bugs into insect containers and then looks at them with a microscope. Matthew also answered our question about what antennae are used for, he informed us that insects use them to find out where things are around them when they can’t see or have poor sight. I asked the children what their favourite insects or spider were and why and this was their response.

Taylor: I liked the flowering Mantid, it had its wings out and I liked the colours.

Sabrina: The praying mantis because it stands still like a statue.

Shawn: I liked the Black Jungle Cicada. It has boggly eyes, so it can see.

Finn: The cicada , I liked its legs.

Jessica: I liked the giant wasp because it looked like a bee.

Jeherson: I liked the Tiger Spider, it had long legs.

Sabrina

I liked the grasshopper because it can jump.

Taylor

I liked the butterfly it had pretend eyes on its wings.

Shawn

I liked the beetles because they had antenna's.

Jessica

I liked the scorpian becuase it was silver.

Jeherson

I liked the spiders becasue they make webs.

Tuesday 18th May

We started today by watching a couple of short clips on National geographic kids. We watched short clips about dung beetles, jumping spiders, the Goliath Tarantula and leaf cutter ants, they are well worth a look. The children had become fascinated with Dung Beetles when we were looking in a book.
Miss B: What is the dung beetle doing?
Sabrina: He’s digging poos.
Taylor: They bury the poos.
Jessica: It rolls the poos.
Taylor: He stands on his front legs and rolls with his back legs.
The clip about the jumping spider answered our query about how many eyes spiders have, it also showed very clearly where the eyes are placed, which was interesting.
Jessica: It has 8 eyes
Taylor: It has eyes on the back of its head.
While watching the clip on leaf cutter ants the children learnt that the ants chop their food and take it back to their nest and that their nests are underground. Sabrina was taken with the way that the ants held the leaves on their back.
Today we were lucky to have Pauline come and visit us. Pauline works for MAF checking incoming cargo for undesirables. She brought in a number of insects and spiders that have been found and preserved for education and interest. The children looked very carefully at owl moths, tarantulas, red backs, wolf spiders, Stag beetles and scorpians. They spent time counting legs and talking about the tarantulas fangs and pedipalps. It was great being able to see them up close from on top and underneath.
The children have also been having lots of fun with an old OHP and some plastic insects and spiders. To start with the children were just putting the shapes on and looking at them enlarged, now they have taken to drawing around the shapes on large sheets of paper.

A correction to Thursdays instalment, we had some centipedes not millipedes and the little yellow bugs that we saw yesterday were Oleander aphids. Oleander aphids feed on Oleander and Swanplants, it pays not to spray the aphids as it will also kill caterpillars.

Monday 17th May

Today we looked at a big book called Sugar for Tea. It is about ants who go and collect a sugar bowl to take back to their larder. When we looked closely at the pictures we discovered that the ants had not been drawn properly and that instead of having 6 legs they only had 4. It was interesting how the ants worked together to get the sugar bowl. We also looked at a book that Finn had brought to school, there was a picture of a wolf spider in it which was very hairy. The book told us that the wolf spider doesn’t have a nose, ears or tongue so it uses its hairs to taste, hear and touch. We saw hairs on a fly do they use their hairs for the same thing?
Shawn had done some great bug hunting yesterday and brought to school an earwig that he had found on the carpet. It was dead, which meant we could have a good look at it . It had 3 body parts, 6 legs and 2 antennae, which means that it is an insect. It also had a spiky tail, Sabrina was worried that it might poke her.
Shawn also brought a piece of swan plant to school. I asked Shawn what usually lives on swan plants.
Shawn: Well sometimes caterpillars live on it. But there are little tiny bugs on it.
We looked at the bugs with magnifying glasses so that we could see them.
Jeherson: They are yellow and they have black feet.
Jessica: They are gorgeous
Taylor: They look like dirt.
Jeherson: They live on the leaves.
Finn: Ants are small and they are small, I think they might be ants.
Miss B: Why do you think they live on the leaf?
Finn: They like leaves.
Jessica: Eating leaves.
Miss B: I think this might be a sap sucking bug, it sucks the juice out of the middle of the plant.
Jessica: I saw one upside down, I think they have sticky feet cause they are stuck to them (the leaves).
Miss B: How do they live on the plant?
Taylor: They live altogether.
Sabrina: They live with friends in a family.
Miss B: Why do you think they live together?
Jessica: They love each other.
Finn: They like each other and play. If they don’t have friends they get lonely.


Questions or ideas to explore further:
Why do insects live together? Possibly looking at bees and ants and the different roles of bugs with in each of these colonies.

Thursday 13th May

Today Shawn brought in a dead spider that his mum had found in the garage and a tiny little spider that was found on the washing line. Shawn noticed that the little spider was trying to climb and when we removed the lid to look at it more closely the spider had constructed a web across the bottom of the insect carrier so that its feet were never actually touching the bottom. Jessica had brought in a white tail spider that was broken in half, we looked at the two parts and reaffirmed that the legs of a spider. I talked to the children and let them know that the front part of a spider is called the cephalothoraxes and that the other part is known as the abdomen, they children rattled the names around laughing at the funny long words. We also got to see the little white dot on the tip of the abdomen that gave the spider its name.
After lunch a parent delivered us a treasure trove of bugs collected from the local play centre’s worm farm. I put them in the large tray and the children studied the insects with magnifying glasses. In the tray we had millipedes, a worm, and some slaters or wood lice. Finn pointed at the worm that was squiggling under some grass.
Finn: Is it a snake, Miss B?
Jessica: No it’s a worm
Miss B: How do you know it’s a worm?
Jessica: It is a worm it has dirt on it.
The children were particularly interested by the woodlice that come in a range of sizes a paid little attention to personal space regularly running over each other heads and bodies.
Jessica: There’s a family that the baby one
I wish I had long legs like that one (pointing to a woodlice)
Miss B: Why?
Jessica: Then I could touch the roof.
I drew attention to the antennae of the various creatures in the containers Jessica who spent a lot of time studying the bugs through a magnifying glass surmised that their antennae help them move, I asked her how..
Jessica: When they fall over they use their antenna's to get up.
I was very surprised that during the session the children never questioned the number of legs that the wood lice and millipede had even though the woodlice often tipped onto their backs waving their legs all over the place.

Wednesday 12th May

Today Sabrina brought a fly to school today her mum caught it in their house. Unlike the fly we looked at yesterday the children noticed that it had a black head, body and eyes and Sabrina thought that it had white on its wings. Sabrina counted the legs and it had 6 so it was decided that it must be an insect.
We looked at a big book that was delivered to our classroom there were lots of great big pictures of insects. We were looking at a picture of a grasshopper and talking about what we could see. Taylor told us that the long pieces at the front were antennae. I asked the children what they thought an insect used its antennae for…
Taylor: They use them to charge.
Miss Bell: Like horns
Taylor: Yes they charge each other with them.
Shawn: I think they use them to flap away the wind.
Finn: I think they use them so they can fly.
The book also talked about camouflage and adaptation to environment. The children were very intrigued with a leaf bug that was very hard to see and could change it’s colour depending on the leaf it was sitting on.
Taylor: They do it because they are scared of people.
Finn: Because they are scared of birds
Miss Bell: Why are they scared of birds?
Jeherson: They (birds) eat them.
A picture of a grasshopper turned up again on a page with a bee and a butterfly. Taylor was
fascinated by the grasshoppers legs and came to the conclusion that a Grasshopper jumps
because it hasn’t got any wings, she also decided that bees have very small wings because they have to get into their hives.
Later in the day I gave the children playdough, pipecleaners toothpicks and asked them to create for me an insect and a spider. All of the children created both with the right number of body parts, antennae were very popular as well and a number of the children placing the correct number of legs on and on the right body part. On top of showing that their understandings about creepy crawlies are already changing it was also a lot of fun.

Questions or ideas to explore further:
What do insects use antennae for?

Today we explored:
· That spider and fly have different physical features that allow us to distinguish them.
Science Level 1 and 2: Recognise that there are lots of different living things in the world and that they can be grouped in different ways.
Investigating in Science:Extend their experiences and personal explanations of the natural world through
exploration, play, asking questions, and discussing simple models.
· That different insects have different features to aid survival and live within their chosen environments.
Recognise that living things are suited to their particular habitat.

Shawn

I went camping in Kaikoura.

Jessica

I went to the library and I saw my favourite book.

Taylor

I went for a walk up a hill with my friend.

Sabrina

I went to the hotel.

Jeherson

I found a spider on a flower.

Finn

I went to the beach.

Tuesday 11th May

We began the day going for a hunt for some insects and bugs, so that we could look at them under a digital microscope. We found a spider and a sleepy fly, (that managed to warm up in the class and fly away) which was replaced with a dead one. As a class we spent some time
discussing the way we had drawn a spider and an insect the day before, especially talking about legs and body parts. After doing this we examined our fly and spider.

We took photos of the spider and put them into easiteach so we could use them on the tablet we, wrote a number on the end of each leg and discovered that spiders have 8 legs. We also found out that spider have two body parts and that rather than having legs all around their head and body, they all come off the front part . We also noticed that the spiders have two round things poking out of their head. Taylor wondered if they were the spiders eyes and Jessica thought that they may be hands ‘They may use them to pick up flies to eat them.’
I then asked the children how they think a spider climbs up wall and on the roof. Jeherson thought it may have something to do with their feet and Jessica and Taylor thought they use webs. Jessica thought it might be a good idea to draw some webs. I then asked the question where do they get webs from, Taylor said ‘They get webs off their bottoms and squeeze them.’

‘It is green and it doesn’t have any stripes on its wings’ Taylor
The first thing that startled them was the beautiful colours on this fly which up until now in their minds have all been black. We counted the number of legs and found out that flies only have 6 legs, but they have 3 parts to their bodies. Jessica noted that ‘He had red eyes and they were big’
We created a venn diagram about spiders and flies and at the moment we have found nothing that they have in common.

Questions or ideas to explore further:
How do spiders climb on walls and ceiling with their feet or webs?
What are the small round parts at the front of a spider, are they eyes or hands?
How do spiders make webs?
Why are a flies eyes so big?

Today we learnt:
· That spider and fly have different physical features that allow us to distinguish them.
Science Level 1 and 2: Recognise that there are lots of different living things in the world and that they can be grouped in different ways.
Investigating in Science:Extend their experiences and personal explanations of the natural world through exploration, play, asking questions, and discussing simple models.

Monday 10th May

In Rata we have been looking at a style of learning developed in Reggio Emelia in Italy. It is child centered, with topics arising from children's conversations and their interactions with the world around them. Teachers look for provocations from which they can challenge and extend the understanding of the children. Our current provocation was a discussion that took place in the class about a bug that was found on the window sill and whether it was a spider or an insect. Rather than provide the children with an answer, we as a class are going to explore insect and spider life to develop an understanding of what they are and make conclusions at to which had died on our classroom window sill.

Today I wanted to find out what the children already knew about Spiders and insects. I asked them to draw a picture of a spider and then an insect and recorded the ideas that they were sharing as they drew their pictures. We will repeat this task at the end of our learning and see how their uderstandings have changed.

Finn’s Insect
Finn: What is an insect? I don’t know.
Miss B: What do you think it might be?
Finn:I think it is a house thing.
At this point one of the other children mentioned bugs.
Finn: I know what a bug is.
It has dots on it and it has no eyes or legs.

Finn’s Spider
Spiders can’t see anything their eyes are all covered up.

Jeherson’s Insect
It has a flower on it and stripes and it has 2 wings and 3 feet. His mouth sticks out and it has 2 eyes.

Jeherson’s Spider
They have 2 eyes and 8 legs.
I asked Jeherson what the long dark piece was off the top of the spider head, his reply was…
They have hairs on them.

Taylor and Jessica ran back and forwards to a picture of a dragonfly, copying the details they could see.


Jessica’s Insect
It has 2 wings, 2 eyes and 5 legs. It’s a doctor one, it makes all the other dragonflies alive again. It has a doctor thing to check your heart with. (stethoscope)

Jessica’s Spider
They have 25 legs and lots of eyes. They are really black and you can’t see their eyes.
I asked Jessica what the long stripy pieces coming out of the spider were, her reply was…
These are white tails.

Taylor’s Insect
It’s a dragonfly on a leaf, it has a flat nose. It has 5 feet and stripes on its tail.

Taylor’s Spider
They have 2 eyes. They have legs all over their head and body.


Shawn’s Insect
It has 11 legs, it has dots on it and 2 eyes.

Shawn’s Spider
They have 9 eyes. It has eyes on its body.

Friday 7th May

Today we ventured out on a Creepy Crawly hunt, without much success. We looked on the playground and found lots of spider webs but no spiders, we think they were hiding because we were loud. We looked in the grass, the garden and behind the classrooms. We found a grey bug, Jessica thought it might be a slug, it was hiding in the old worm farm bins.
Jeherson found a bee, it was caught in a web and did not move, he thinks that a spider ate the bee. We found two spiders, one was hard to see it was asleep in a web under a piece of wood. The other was behind the classrooms on a heat pump. We have taken close up pictures of the Creepy Crawlies we found and we are going to look at them closely on Monday. Over the weekend we are going to have a look for Creepy Crawlies at home.