They started by learning about some of the parts of the squid:
The fins are at the top, the body is called the mantle, they have 2 long tentacles and 6 legs (not 8 tentacles), and they actually have a beak like a bird that they use to bite their prey.
Derek and Gavin study their squid...from a distance. Gavin was anxious to get his hands on it, but Derek wasn't so sure he wanted to smell like them. I don't blame him -- I ended up lending a hand (or two) and smelled like them for 2 days!
The spot right there was where the beak was, plus the brain is in that tiny white pouch. The brain sizes varied, but most were about the size of a small marble.
Not for the weak stomached people...this is Squiddy with all his insides exposed. There really isn't much to them. The black pouch through the middle is the ink sac. They also have a stiff piece of "bone" called a quill behind that pouch that we were able to remove so the boys could write with the quill and ink from their squid.
Derek and Gavin took turns getting ink on the quill so they could write their names. Not much ink in ours...maybe he/she got scared being caught and squirted whomever was getting it.
Derek showing off Squiddy's beak. The kids were allowed to take their beak with them to show parents IF they washed it off. Yeah, that's just what we needed in our house...a smelly squid beak! It quickly disappeared and was never to be seen/heard from again!
I find it amazing all of the hands-on learning that they do at Concordia. Though the squid dissection is not a common thing -- one teacher doesn't mind doing it, so she volunteers every year -- they do a lot of learning-by-doing instead of just learning-by-reading. Alex's class learned about rocks, minerals, and crystals by growing crystals in their classroom. They also went on a field trip to the Shanghai Geological Museum to see samples of quartz, calcite, fluorite, etc. so they could read some facts about them, sketch an example of one they saw at the museum, and take pictures.
No comments:
Post a Comment