Mindful Monday's Meanderings

Here is a new specimen we discovered today.  It is called a Tough Grey Beetle http://bugguide.net/node/view/634855/bgpage  Look how well it is adapted to camouflage into it's habitat.  We found this little fella out on the large pavers.  This led to conversation about how beetles have an exoskeleton (their hard outer shell protects their body) compared to other organisms that have an endoskeleton (an internal bone structure).

We continued our journey of exploring perimeter by measuring different objects outside with our meter sticks.  It's important to make sure you include your units when calculating perimeter.  Are you measuring in cm or m? Well it depends on the size of the object.

Here are some examples for you to practice measuring perimeter at home:  

Later this afternoon we returned to our alpha boxes to add new vocabulary connected to ecosystems and life cycles.  

Then some of us worked on expanding our background knowledge by viewing the videos and links in D2L  about lifecycles.  https://d2l.cbe.ab.ca/d2l/home/421850 Some others worked on our analysis and sorting skills based on attributes (characteristics).  Partners had to decide on their own sorting rules by analyzing pictures of various animal specimens.   We had to review the characteristics of different categories such as mammals, insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, spiders, carnivores, herbivores, insectivores).  

Look how creative we are using hula hoops as  portable venn diagrams!

This classification sparked all kinds of questions and inferences.  One of the questions we came up with is:  Do starfish (Sea stars) lay eggs?  It turns out they do indeed.  

Please bring your library books back tomorrow, since we have changed our library time to Wednesday at 10:15 instead of Thursday since we are headed out on our community walk on Thursday morning.