Biome Bottles, Ecosystem Learning... and Nine-Year-Olds

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 It's beginning to feel like Spring in Pennsylvania,  and with it comes our state tests and just beyond...my favorite teaching of the ENTIRE year...ecosystems and biomes.  I just LOVE nature and last year I jumped our third graders in with both feet and we made a huge mess in my room for two days and assembled fully self-contained terrestrial and aquatic biome bottles. 

This project has allowed me to connect so many things I love--big projects, my aquarium past, kids, parents, plants and photography. 

Parents from both classes of our third graders helped greatly and we got lots of donor support from aquarium plants to cherry shrimp and snails.  Coca-Cola donated 150 new 2L bottles and an awesome mom and dad team cut three per child exactly so, to assemble into what you see below.
To do this project you 'll need:

 -3 clean 2-L soda bottles, caps removed
- clean garden stone (about 2C per bottle)
 -potting soil (garden soil, no vermiculite...about
        1-1.5 C per bottle)
-sand (about 1/4 C per bottle)
-a handful of composted leaves and a stick or  
         two
- a sprinkling of grass seed (we added a few
         alyssum flower seeds for fun)
- an oxygenating aquatic plant (anacharis,
         cabomba, hygrophilia, hornwort, ludwigia
          are a few)
- THE CRITTERS:  for the terrarium: an earthworm, a few sowbugs, and a cricket
                                                                                          for the aquarium:  a snail and a cherry shrimp
NOTE: We lost many of the cherry shrimp, either because sitting on the windowsill in April is too cold, or because the nitrate load in the small amount of water is too great for shrimp.  There are no fish that are strict herbivores so I didn't want to use them.  I don't like killing animals so this year we're going to try gammarus or scuds.  They are amphipods and are much smaller, but they eat algae and I think will stand a better chance of the students understanding the balance of small ecosystem animal/plant relations well enough with this much excitement going on in their worlds.

 I make a big deal of our learning and connecting.  I ask a lot of my third graders.  They learn all about ecosystems.

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Vocabulary: producers, primary, secondary and tertiary consumers, energy source, decomposers, food web, food chain....biomes, biotic and abiotic members of their biome, ecosystem, habitat.

Student pairs create a food chain mobile of local animals and plants as an assessment.

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We go on a culminating field trip to a local Environmental Center where students participate in a stream study. They wade into the stream to collect macroinvertebrates then analyze them to see which species they have, using a guide that helps them determine health of the water for animals/plants living in the riparian zone nearest the river...and as a result the health of the watershed area.

I'd be glad to share food web, producer/consumer/decomposer worksheets, a math project and anything else with you if you comment below and include your email. 

Whew! With Thanksgiving behind me and Christmas hype EVERYWHERE, a girl just has to buckle her seat belts and hang on!!! Or does she?  I'm starting my December by getting up just a bit earlier and plopping in my new favorite chair with a mug of coffee in my newly redone living room in front of the newly decorated (OK...it's calling me to finish once I punctuate this blog entry) Christmas tree to read a chunk of the Bible's account of the birth of Christ Jesus fresh and new each morning.  It slows me to the crawl of Nazareth's gentle hum.  The bleat of a goat.  The wind in the trees.  It calms me to a new pace.  

I've purged my home of lots of clutter in these past months, but the clutter of voices tugging at me, to-do lists shouting my name. Calm.  It's a treasure this chair, this coffee, this bible.  Jesus whispers here.  

I need a purging. Do you?  I invite you to join me. It's delightful.

SOUP for a TERRIBLY-LONG-LASTING-Cold!

Today I took one of those sick days we teachers hate to use.  I didn't have the usual long task of lesson plans to hurdle since much of the day involved a field trip... but I still always feel guilty no matter how badly I feel that my class doesn't have me! (How conceited does THAT sound?) I really just mean that their routine is thrown off, the fun of having "their teacher" with them on a fun day...maybe one or two of you teacher colleagues will know what I mean. 

After getting in (finally) to see one of the doctors in my practice I gathered my antibiotic prescription and while it was being filled at my grocery store I hand-selected leeks, ginger root, fresh celery and carrots, plopped them down alongside two boxes of tissues and cold meds, paid for it all and shuffled home to make good-old-fashioned-chicken soup (from stock I cooked yesterday off a Boston Market chicken !)

The result was worth the effort.  Yummy healing warmth.  I'm off to bed now, first dose of amoxicillin and healing veggies in me.  Enough time later to correct papers and plan for the rest of the week.  So thankful for a sick day, a quiet house and colorful veggies.

"That's Pinteresting!"

This one picture, from Queen Events and Consulting FB page was posted by my friend and she just couldn't figure out how to pin it to her Pinterst board. So I decided to place it here to help her.  In doing this, I have come to realize how very much Pinterest has helped me and changed the "newest craze" on the Internet from a FB focus and its aps to this new virtual magazine file land we are all in love with.  What do you think?  Is Pinterst here to stay?  I hope so!  And for you, Jane...you're welcome!

Tip of The Day!
During winter fill balloons with water and add food coloring, once frozen cut the balloons off & they look like giant marbles or Christmas decorations. I can't wait to try this!   https://www.facebook.com/pages/Queen-Events-and-Consulting/230606207037687 

Launch Blog

This summer I've enjoyed Pinterest. I've gained a lot of ideas and pinned to an ever-increasing number of boards on my homepage there.  Through this addiction, I've discovered the connected community of bloggers out there.  And now I've decided to jump in with you all and get interactive on my own site.

I'm a teacher. Like teachers everywhere I love the blessing of collaboration. Sharing ideas. Sharpening my own tools on the sharp blades of others. Like you. Sharing makes the great ideas go farther. More students benefit. Win/win!

I'm also an artist at heart. Though I must confess I get too little time to really work at it during the school year except through the craftiness I can bring into the classroom.  But that doesn't stop me from gathering ideas...my heart beats crayon, paint, cutting and COLOR!

I'm a writer and have a poet's soul, but again it all gets funneled through inspiring third graders in their own writers' craft!  This blog may be all the time I get to write during teaching season...so don't be too hard on me!

I love animals and children and everything about learning.  In the past few years (comes with aging) I've been learning how not to take myself and living on this planet too seriously.  But as it says in the Bible's book of Proverbs, a woman can laugh at the days to come when she's prepared enough. 

So... getting organized toward "less is more," sharing from my own half century of collecting ideas, dreams, supplies, and a little wisdom-- I begin my blogging journey among so many talented women.  I desire to know you and  to laugh with you at the days to come!

Myra

P. S.   I've especially been blessed  this summer by two of my favorite blog stops  and want to "thank" them by recommending them to you here:

Christina's Adventures 
The Organized Classroom 

Eventually I will figure out how to copy their grab buttons and post them for you to link to. Tomorrow.