Guess What's in the Buckets? February 21, 2008

What's in the Buckets?
On Monday, I "surprised" the class with two "things" that my brothers found over the long weekend.  Two buckets sitting atop a shelf housed the surprises, and with anxious anticipation the students wrote down their predictions, explained the reasoning for their predictions, and came up with questions they would ask me to find out if their prediction was correct.  After brainstorming during Writer's Workshop, the students shared their questions with the class, and I proceeded to answer the questions.  Before revealing the "surprise," the students' questions taught them the following about what was in the buckets: The "surprise"....does not live in water; is a vertebrate; does not lay eggs; is not a cannibal (usually); has horns; is not a plant; is not a type of fish; sometimes changes color; does not eat leaves; is a reptile; eats crickets.  After hearing these hints, the children cheered, "It's Jackson chameleons!"  The children enjoyed the show-and-tell with both Jackson chameleons.  The small guy was the first one out of the bucket, but he ran too fast and scampered around the carpet...the class now calls him "Rascal."  The big boy's name is still up for debate: either "Shaq" (since he's so large), "Victor" (since he would be the victorious one in a fight), or "Struck" (since he was almost struck by a car in the street before he was picked up).

Due to the voracious appetites of these creatures, keeping them as class pets was initially out of the question.  However, the children have stepped up to the plate, and some of them have volunteered to take turns bringing in crickets and the likes for our Jacksons.  It's thrilling to watch the Jackson chameleons hunt their food.  Yesterday we read about Jackson chameleons and discovered that their tongue is one-and-a-half times as long as their body.  No wonder they can be perched on a twig and make a meal out of a cricket on the other side of the cage.  We've also been coming up with great word problems about our class mascots.  If there are 3 Jackson chameleons in a cage and each Jackson eats 8 crickets a day, how many crickets do we need to put in the cage each day?  Thank you to LW and ER for bringing in crickets and "yummy" worms for Jack, Rascal, and Big Boy (for now).


Thank You
Thank you to Torry Montes for coming to our classroom to teach us about adoption and celebrate EM's Happy Adoption Day!  We loved learning about EM's experience and enjoyed the delicious homemade brownies.  Thank you to JH for the special rice krispee treats!

Posted on February 21, 2008 7:54 AM | Permalink