Exploring our world!

Last week in JK the children embarked upon a journey around the world!  It all began in North America, where they all drew pictures of animals they know or want to know more about.  As a class we made a list of the things we know about these animals, want to know about these animals, and added what we learned about them at the end of the week.  One animal that kept popping up on our list was the brown bear!  Go figure! :)  The children were excited to learn that brown bears are not always brown and that they not only live in North America, but in parts of Europe, Northern Africa, and Asia too.  We talked about hibernation and what bears eat.  The children traced almost life-size brown bears on paper, cut them out, painted them, and stuffed them to add to our homemade bear cave in the Exploratorium.  It was beary fun work!

Tuesday's Valentine party was a happy success!  The children had so much fun, and it was fantastic to have so many Parent Volunteers.  Thank you!!

Wednesday was a hoot!  When one of our Bright-Eyed Bears shared that he had seen a Great-horned owl in one of the trees on campus...during the day.....we just had to check it out!  What a beautiful creature!  I was able to take some pictures, but the children were able to really learn about and discover the amazing world of owls.  Take a look!

Back in the classroom we looked at a youtube video of the birds, read a book about them, and then headed back outside to look for owl pellets.  The children were a little too excited (lol) to find out that owls regurgitate or spit up their food in the form of pellets.  They learned about how owls are nocturnal, hunt for foods such as mice, rats and other small rodents, etc. and swallow their food whole.  When the food goes down, the strong acids in the owls body breaks down the "good" parts that the owl can use, such as the meat.  The fir, bones, feathers, etc. is packed together into a solid pellet and spit out for teachers and students to find and explore for learning.  We found the pellets of this particular owl near the tree where he/she was perched.  The children took their Science journals to draw pictures of what they learned and wore gloves to sift through the pellets where they found bones, fir, and feathers.  We found that our owl really likes mice!

Although stinky, these owl pellets were very informative!