Hello Friends! I'm Ashley from The Teacher's Treasure Chest!! I wanted to stop in a share something with you.

My classroom critter is Rocky. He is our beloved pet hermit crab. The students chose the name Rocky, after a class election. We voted on his name, and then graphed the results of the election. The students had so much fun with this!

Through the year, Rocky was a wonderful classroom critter! He never got out of his home unless we took him out. He was very easy and inexpensive to take care of. He enjoyed spending time with the students. The students really enjoyed taking care of him and working as a team to make sure that Rocky was being cared for properly. Parents really pitched in as well. They often brought supplies, and "toys" for Rocky. Needless to stay our class LOVED Rocky!!

That's what makes this so hard :( I brought Rocky home for the summer. I wanted him to have a comfortable living environment like he had at school. Without my knowledge, my four year old, brought Rocky outside and put him in our flower beds one day while we were working in the yard. I looked all over for poor Rocky once I realized this. He was no where to be found :(

I found Rocky's shell today, almost two weeks later. I was pretty sad about it. Not knowing what I would tell my students when they return in the fall. The good news is, that this post made me remember how much joy Rocky brought to our class. At the beginning of the year, I was pretty much against a "Critter" in the classroom. Now I can't imagine my class without one.

So now I am hooked :) I hope you enjoyed reading about our pet and how we used him in our classroom. Be sure to visit my blog!!!


Thanks!

summertime, not what?

What do you do with your critters during the summer?
Since I no longer have mammals, this year was no sweat! The scorpion was left on a shelf {high shelf beside the tarantula so the cleaning crew won't get scared!}. Heaters plugged in-check!
I normally take the whole community of fish home. It's quite a site. First I fill my backup tank at home and get the filter going a week or so beforehand. Then, back at school, I catch each fish {this takes for.ever}. Place them in a bucket, hook the air home into the wall and put in the bucket til I am absolutely ready to leave, buckle the bucket into the passenger seat, the pour all 10 fish into the tank. But this year I am allowed into the school gasp until the carpet's torn up, so all critters are fed once per week. None of my lovies need daily food or water, so this is really working out.
for the past 3 summers we've housed a tarantula in our kitchen! That's a conversation starter for sure.
I hope everyone is enjoying a little break, and if you're not yet, just think...I have a workshop tomorrow! That's my first official day out of school! yup! They are providing water and chocolate, so I guess I'll let it slide!

Hello Critters!

Hello Critters in the Classroom Friends,

I have enjoyed following this blog since it started and I have learned a lot about the different critters in the classrooms of the teachers who post their experiences here. I was very excited to be invited to contribute to this blog as well.

I am from the Little Miss Kindergarten blog. And I really wanted a place to be able to feature my true love of Science with young children and all of our critter capers, so I decided to start another blog... Little Miss Hypothesis. This is where I share my Science fun and anything related to critters. I was fortunate enough to have Petsmart sponsor classroom critters for me last year. Last year in my classroom I had fish, snails, crabs, frogs, worms and butterflies. I was determined to have critters that didn't have fur or feathers. We only had the worms and butterflies for a while before we set them free but our fish, snails, frogs and crabs are with us all year! These critters have provided my class with tons of observation opportunities and tons of notebooking opportunities too. I am trying to decide what critters I will add this year. What do you suggest?



Ants in the Class!

Our science curriculum includes a study on ants.  I create a whole ant unit and I am sharing these sample activities with you.  Click the pictures below to download the freebies. 

My entire Ant Unit is available on TpT.  Out of all the critters I have had in my classroom, ants are my least favorite.  They were really cool to watch, though.   Click {here} to read about my ant wrangling adventures. 

I highly recommend the gel ant farm over the sand one.  My only issue with it was that you have to open it every few days to get fresh air into the farm.  I have no clue why they did not make air holes, but the gel ant farm was so much easier to get the ants into.  

My very creative co-workers came up with the ideas for ant faces on the bodies and the "If I Were an Ant" writing prompts.  One of my students wrote, "If I were an ant, a candle would seem like an inferno."  

The page toppers for the "Dear Ant Bully" persuasive letters were inspired by the teachers at Peace, Love, and Kindergarten.  I have included the activity and tracers {here} for free!

Click the cover below to check out my Ant Unit on TpT!