Sea Stars...

On Friday we learned about sea stars!

 I asked the kids to show me how they think a sea star moves...

 We sang:

"Starfish (Name), I see you,

in the Atlantic Ocean blue.

Stretch your arms out to the side.

Stretch your legs out far and wide.

Starfish (Name), I see you,

in the Atlantic Ocean blue."

(Sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle.")

 I cut a star shape from a pentagon, and five triangles.  (This was a Mother Goose resource from our Space unit.)  I explained that a sea star can escape predators by losing an arm and growing it back later.  I invited a few of the kids to pull a leg from the star, and then piece it back together.  I taught the kids that the pentagon shape was left in the middle if all the legs are detached.

 Mother Goose provided us with the following supplies for our sea star craft!  This is why I love Mother Goose so much!  I just simply would not have thought to do this on my own, nor would I have had these supplies just hanging around the house.

 I asked the kids what they thought a sea star feels like.  They mostly replied with, "Slimy," "Squishy," and "Soft."  We were all surprised to learn that a sea star actually has hard bumpy skin that protects it from predators!  Before completing our craft, we reinforced this fact with rocks.  The kids rolled a die and then placed the same number of rocks on their sea star shape.  They continued until their sea star was completing filled with hard, bumpy rocks.  Then they counted how many rocks they could fit all together on their sea star!

 After playing with the rocks, the kids colored their sea star and placed their pearl stickers on top.  The pearl stickers made their sea stars feel hard and bumpy, like a real sea star!  I also asked them to count how many pearl stickers they were given.

 Our next activity was so much fun!  The kids had to "Draw the Facts!"  I asked the kids what body parts they think a sea star has.  Then I read sea star facts one at a time and asked the kids to listen and draw a picture of a sea star by drawing only what they heard...

- Draw 5 arms.

- Draw many small feet on each arm.

- Draw 2 stomachs.

- Draw 1 mouth in the center.

- Draw an eye at the end of each arm.

 After I gave out all the directions, the kids looked at their friend's artwork.  They compared the similarities and differences between their drawings.  We were all amazed at how different each picture was!  It just goes to show that there is no "right" way in art!  Every picture showed a great amount of creativity and imagination!

 Later on the kids practiced writing sea animal names in their literacy workbook...

 They also cut apart sea stars from their math workbook, and practiced sorting by size and by color.

 These were our books for today!  We learned that a sea star arm is called a "ray."

For snack we made sea stars with toast, peanut butter, and Rice Krispies cereal.  We talked about how a sea star's diet can include barnacles, snails, sea urchins, clams, and mussels. 

 The kids spread their peanut butter on their star shaped toast with a Popsicle stick, and then sprinkled the cereal on the top to a make a bumpy texture...

 

We also learned that starfish often wrap their arms around their prey and squeeze them to open the shells.  I also gave the kids grapes with their snack.  They tried to squish their grapes with their hands.  Then they looked inside and discussed with their friends what they saw.  They were a little hesitant to do this at first, but I reminded them their hands are always washable.  They were surprised to learn that squishing the grape didn't changes its taste/flavor at all.

 This is too cute...After a bit of time passed by, one child taught his friends that you can peel the "wrapper" off of the grape.  They were all so shocked and amazed!  They could see that the grape looked green under the purple skin.  They then concluded that "green grapes are really purple grapes with their wrappers off!"  Lol!  Snack took a lot longer than I had expected, but these kids were go entertained with peeling off their grape wrappers!