up close and personal with our insects

Hey! It's Rachel from the tattooed teacher and I have the best tool to share with y'all today.
It's a microscope, but it connects to my computer through a USB cord (so you could connect to other things as well, I just don't have any other things!)

it's called the Digital Blue microscope. It's probably not the greatest microscope in the world, but I love that I can take photos, video, and the scope is removable for looking at things that I may not want to pick up! No, I'm not reviewing this baby! It was inherited with my room, but it's awesome! I found a few online!

Here are some of our pics from this week! Some were alive, others not.so.much. 

feel free to use any of these with your students!

It's also kinda fun to look at other things too! and completely kid friendly!

We've also had plenty of other life cycle fun with my Intro to Insects unit and Mealworms on Parade!!

takin notes on insect activity while it's still nice and warm!

found lots of insects in the neglected garden!

Wednesday we released our painted lady butterflies. This one wanted to stay!

I love this! We made birth certificates for our mealworms and he even made their little habitat!

If you are looking for lots of fun with insect life cycles that's super hands-on, try these!

and tomorrow we are using Cara's Hey Little Ant writing activity. We have an early release at lunch so it better take hours! 

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?



Got Allergies?

Stacee at Tiggeriffic 2nd Graders wanted to know how I handle children with pet allergies in my classroom.

When I set up my classroom in August, I don't bring any of my pets to school for two reasons. One, the heat is too much for them (and me)! Two, I don't yet know if anyone coming into my class has allergies.

So, the first week of school, I send home a packet for parents which includes information on school and class procedures, expectations, schedules, etc. Included in the packet is a parent information form that parents fill out and return to me. I gather a lot of information about my students from this form including, "Does your child have any allergies (including animals)?"

After I get these forms returned, I go from there.

My tarantula comes to school first. No one is ever allergic to it and the kids don't really handle it! And being a desert animal, the heat doesn't bother it, like it does the kids and me.

If a parent lists a pet allergy (other than guinea pig or rabbit) on the information form, I contact them to discuss the severity of the allergy, symptoms, etc. Together we decide which furry animal to introduce into the classroom first. Then we touch base everyday for a couple weeks to see how things go before bringing in the other animal. And the process repeats.

My experience has been that the most common allergies are to dogs or cats. I've only had one child allergic to rabbits, and he was okay as long as he washed after petting the rabbit. His allergy wasn't too severe and his parents were fine with the pets in the class.

I've never had any problems with guinea pigs, hedgehogs, hamsters, walking sticks, snakes, or lizards. Some kids don't want to handle the animals and some know they can't because they sometimes get itchy.

No matter what, kids should always wash after handling any animals! Non-furry pets carry different risks such as salmonella, so washing is a must.

Birds have a different kind of dander (is that what it is called?) that can be difficult for kids with respiratory ailments. I've seen some people sensitive to rat dander, too.

The health and well-being of my students is my top priority, so if a student has a reaction to any of my pets the pet will go home to live. I make sure the parents and kids know that. Yes, the kids would be saddened, but caring for our friends in class is more important.

I've only had one pet go home and it was because one of our specialist that used my room had a reaction.

The worst that can happen is your pet comes home for a while. And after all, they are your pets first and foremost!