More Turtles!

Hello family and friends!

This has been such a busy week packed with turtle exploration! We've been learning a lot about the different types of turtles, their physical characteristics, and their habitats. It's been a great week of learning for all of us. We've learned so many facts about turtles that I never knew, and the kids have really gotten excited about these new ideas. It looks like we will be wrapping up our exploration early next week, followed by some time spent exploring Chanukah!

To start our week, we spent some time exploring the different parts of a turtle and their usefulness to turtles. We were able to spend some more time examining our turtle artifacts and we were also able to visit a preschool classroom that has two pet turtles. We spent some time in there looking at the turtles interact in their environment and asking some more questions. We've also been talking about the different types of turtles. We have mainly been exploring sea turtles and tortoises. We have used large group and one-on-one time with the kids to read books about the typed that interest them the most. After exploring the different types of a turtles, we each made a turtle out of clay. We left books out in the art center for the kids to explore while they molded all the parts. As they made their model turtle, we encouraged them to think about which type of turtle they were making and their physical characteristics. We discovered that they are all shaped differently based on their type in order for them to survive in their different environments. After molding the clay we were able to paint it them.

We also spent time talking about the importance of scientist and rangers. We learned that they make a huge difference in the conservation of turtles. We did talk some about extinction. This mainly came about when a book we read mentioned that turtles were alive during the time of the dinosaurs (of course the class went crazy...they love dinosaurs!) That got us talking about the extinction of the dinosaurs and the fact that animals can still become extinct today. That's why it's so important for us to take care of our environment and learn about ways to help animals in the wild. We discussed the fact that out of a 100 eggs that a sea turtle lays, there is on average, only 2 eggs that usually survive. It was difficult to find 100 of the same objects in our room to show them what this would look like, but we were able to find 100 pattern blocks. We pretended that they were eggs and we laid them out in the middle of our carpet and counted all the way to 100. We discussed the different difficulties that a hatchling might face on the way to the ocean and we ended up with only 2 blocks (or eggs) left. I think this was a good way for them to have a visualization of how special it is when we see a sea turtle...it's a big deal if one of them makes it to the ocean! After our conversation, we've been hearing a lot of talk of scientists and rangers...which we love! :)

Another thing we did this week was exploring the size of different turtles. We learned that the world's largest turtle in the leather back sea turtle, which can grow up to 8 feet long. We also learned that the world's smallest turtle is the speckled cape tortoise, which only grows to be 3 inches long. To show this we got out our measuring tapes and laid the length out on the floor. We laid down next to it and found out a leather back was even taller than our teachers! They were also curious about whether a leather back turtle would be as tall as the ceiling. Of course we had to check that out too. I stood on the table and we measured from the ceiling to the floor to find that leather back are probably only about a foot shorter than our ceiling (I apologize in advance if anyone climbs on the table at home. We take full responsibility :)). After measuring, we went to the supply closet and measured out 8 feet of paper in length. We took it back to our room and laid it across the floor. We measured it out and then drew our own life size leather back turtle. The kids spent most of that morning coloring and talking...it was so much fun! We also measured a 3 inch piece of paper and drew a speckled cape tortoise to compare the sizes of the two. These are both hanging up in the hallway if you'd like to check them out. There are also some writing workshop samples hanging in the hallway. The kids told us some facts they had learned about turtles, then wrote them down and drew a picture to go along with it. I loved the list they made! It was such an encouragement to hear that they had soaked up so much knowledge in just a weeks worth of time.

To end our study, we have started working on some turtle habitats with boxes. We are decorating one box to look like a sea turtle habitat and the other to look like a tortoise habitat. We're talking about where they live, what they eat, and how they survive in these different habitats as we work. We plan on wrapping these up early next week. After we finish, we will be putting our model turtles in their appropriate habitat and put them on display in the hallway. I'm so impressed with how hard they've been working on these! I hope all of you enjoying looking at all their hard work this week. We've had so much fun!

Approaches to Learning:

Demonstrate increasing ability to identify and take appropriate risks in order to learn and demonstrate new skills.
Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questioning and adding ideas.
Demonstrate delight or satisfaction when completing a task, solving a problem, or making a discovery.
Show increasing ability to maintain interest in self-selected activities and play despite distractions and interruptions.

Social & Emotional:

Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers, activities and materials.
Follow classroom rules and procedures with reminders.
Use classroom materials responsibly, most of the time.
Recognize effect on others of own behavior most of the time.

Language & Literacy:

Show interest in informational texts about familiar objects.
Begin to identify significant words from text read aloud.
Begin asking "how and why" questions when looking at texts.
Incorporate information from informational texts into play activities.
Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs, and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.
Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
Make connections to prior knowledge, other texts, and the world in response to texts read aloud.

Mathematics:

Organize and represent data with real objects.
Associate at least two measurement devices with their purposes.
Compare lengths of two objects.
Represent simply tow-dimensional geometric shapes.
Sort and classify objects by one attribute.
Compare sets of no more than ten objects using the terms "more than" or "same as".
Count orally forward to twenty and backward from three.

Examining real turtles...