Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Finally, Back to School

Tuesday I was back at school, the first time since May.  I was thrilled to be there, and Ms. H was happy I was back.  Lots of hugs, a few tears as we caught up.  Mostly though it was a happy morning.

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The classroom.  Lots of work of the children.  Lots of work from Ms. H.

We did some regular work, reading, phonics. writing sentences.  Then the fun part began. A Ranger from the East Bay Parks was there to teach the children about amphibians and reptiles.  IMG_3208

Ranger James is showing pictures of the life cycle of a frog, or the big word he taught the children, metamorphosis. 

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This is Freddy the frog and his friend the snake.  Freddy taught the children about the eggs, tadpoles, developing legs, and then a real frog.

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The clear plastic are “frog eggs”, the front green animal is the tadpole with legs, behind that the light green is a tadpole, and then Freddy Frog.

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Ranger James is showing us a snake skin.  It was then passed around to touch.

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Ms. H is taking a picture of the snake skin.  She took lots of picture.  Later the children will pick a picture and write about this lesson.

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Ranger James has a large live frog in his hand.  Children were allowed to touch if they wanted to.  The frog was not happy.

Then Ranger James said we were going to play a game.  A person would be blindfolded and handed objects to identify.  We could only answer yes or no to her questions.

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Ms. H was the guesser.  She was handed frog eggs (real), a turtle shell, a snake skin.  Then he said the next item would be alive, and wiggly.  She is the bravest woman I know.  She sat there, making faces but let the tiny newt crawl over her hands and arms.  I would have run screaming from the room.

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After the blindfold came off, she walked around to show the children the newt.

As the children left the room, Ranger James had another live critter, a snake.

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This is a type of milk snake. For protection its markings are very much like the deadly coral snake.

This was a great lesson, lots of fun, laughing, and awe.  Ranger James rocks.

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