"The Cricket has two legs. And the Cricket has a head." Poem by Dana, SK
A link to a video of Eric Carle's book The Very Quiet Cricket:
We were so lucky to be visited by this wonderful creature one morning. This is a perfect example of how our program evolves each and every day. We have a plan in place for experiences that we are going to present to the children during our school day and the students' interests, discoveries and questions take us in a completely different direction! I am truly enjoying this aspect of our program. On this particular day, the cricket - appearing in Ms. Macsai's office- was carefully and lovingly captured, observed, and then released outside to "the wilderness". We were so fortunate to be able to observe it up close - count it's legs, see it's wings, antennae and eyes. The students made many observations and posed questions: "What are those spikes for? Is it for defense?" posed Carter. It was quite fascinating to watch and listen as it chirped.
We read The Very Quiet Cricket, by Eric Carle, and discovered that only male crickets chirp and that they do so to find mates. We observed the cricket as it left a "dropping" and light-heartedly discovered that all animals make waste.They also discussed the best way to care for this animal, determining the best thing for it would be to release it to find its family or at least another "girl cricket". They enjoyed learning how to draw and scientifically label their observations. Unfortunately, all of our lovely diagrams went home before I could snap a photo! Next time I'll have to be quicker.