Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Sam and Friends

It has been Creature Week in fourth grade.

For science, we are studying insects and arachnids, so the kids have been in the mood for collecting insects and other creatures so we can examine them up close or perhaps, even keep them for pets.

We've borrowed second grade's tarantula for a few days now, and on Tuesday, the kids caught a beetle, and we fed it to the tarantula. That thing gobbled the beetle right up. I'm not a huge fan of spiders, but it was pretty cool.


There's our tarantula friend, fat and happy after his beetle.


We found a praying mantis...



And then... since the second grade class had caught the mother of all praying mantises, we decided to see what would happen if we put the two of them in the same cage together.

Watching the show...

And this was the result:



Yep, that's the big one eating the little one. The big one ate everything but the papery wings. It was crazy. You can imagine the commotion.


But my favorite find that the kids brought in is Sam, our new class pet.


That's Sam there. A Southern Alligator Lizard, straight from one of my students' driveways. After doing some research online, I've found that they survive in captivity quite well, and they will eat anything that moves. I picked up some mealworms from the pet store today, so we'll see how Sam does. We're not sure if Sam is a girl or a boy, hence the name that could be Samantha or Samuel. Lizards just seem more like "he" creatures, so it'll probably end up being a "he".


He seems pretty happy for now in his makeshift cage, which is a tin baking pan with a plastic cover. One of the kids has an empty reptile tank in the garage, and another student is going to bring in a desk lamp so Sam can have some warmth.

I'm starting to grow a bit fond of Sam.

I hope he survives!


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