Leaves! Leaves! Leaves!

This morning we had a wonderful 4 Winds presentation about Leaves. The focus of the presentation was that leaves vary in appearance and texture, but they are all designed to function as food producers for their plants.(HONpgs. 191-197).

Our first focus question was "Why do plants have leaves?" Look at the slide show below to watching us make our scientific observa

tions.

Scientific Journals!

The children each drew their own scientific drawing of a spider. The children labeled their pictures, colored their spiders using colored pencils and even discovered how useful a ruler can be to draw a straight line. Wonderful observations and discoveries were made through this activity. We used our SMARTboard to help us create a spider and label it's body parts.

Photographs Of Some Of The Activites We Did!

You will notice that the activites the children participated in are all hands on activities. This is very important for young children to help them observe, classify and make scientific obseravtions about what they are experiencing.

Photographs Of The Different Types Of Spiders That We Learned About!

One of the spiders we learned about, The Goliath Spider eats birds! We learned that it is a very large spider and does not live in Vermont.

What Do Spiders Look Like? What Do They Do? How Do They Eat?

The children were able to look at different spiders in individual jars and observe their movements.

What Are The Body Parts Of A Spider?

The children had an opportunity to put together a felt spider in small, cooperative groups.
Unit/Concept Ideas:
The children learned that spiders have 2 main body parts: cephalothorax and abdomen. They have 8 legs and can have up to 8 eyes!
Spiders and insects are related in that both are arthropods, having jointed legs and an exoskeleton. A nice connection to make here with your child would be that a ladybug also has an exoskeleton.
Spiders produce silk from glands within the abdomen and release it through spinnerets near the end of the abdomen.
Not all spiders spin webs, but the ones that do use their web to catch their food, insects.
Web spinning spiders use their sense of touch to detect web motion made by a mate approaching or by prey.

What is 4 Winds?

4 Winds is a great program that is taught and organized by parents who want to learn and teach others about the natural world around them. The organizer of this great outreach program for young children is Lisa Wong. You can reach her at lisakenwong@myfairpoint.net if you would like more information about the program and what you can do to help. I will list a schedule of dates and themes on this blog to keep you up to date with all the topics that will be covered this year.

4 Winds! All About Spiders!

This morning we had our first 4 Winds program about Spiders. We learned that spiders are arachnids, they have 8 legs, 2 body parts and can have lots of eyes!