Week 13 Day 4

Book choices for today:

Snakes   Lisa Jo Rudy
Green Anaconda   Molly Smith
Boa Constrictor   Valerie J. Weber
S-S-Snakes!   Lucille Penner
Let’s Visit Some Islands   Allan Fowler

Zoology: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Pictures of snakes and snake matching.

Zoology 21
Reptiles are vertebrates. They have dry scales on their skin, are cold blooded, and breathe with lungs. They also lay eggs. Do baby reptiles need a parent to take care of them after they hatch?
Snakes are one kind of reptile. Snakes do not have any legs or arms. They can zig-zag over the ground quickly. Snakes do not have any ear openings. Instead their entire body picks up, or feels vibrations through the ground. Snake eyes stay open all the time. A snakes teeth are small and hooked. The tongue of a snake is long and forked. A snakes nostrils help it to tell whether an animal is near and what kind it is. Snakes eat live animals like insects, worms, frogs, mice, birds, and bird eggs. Snakes swallow their food whole. They do not chew it. Their mouths can open very wide, and then their heads and bodies stretch to let in the big things they’ve eaten.
Every few months a snake grows too big for its skin. Each time, it gets rid of its old skin by crawling right out of it! When the old skin is ready to come off, it dries up and becomes loose. The snake will then rub his head against something rough. He begins to crawl and as he crawls his old skin slides down his body. Off comes the old skin and the snake crawls away now with new skin that grew beneath the old one.

Snakes (from: Rattlesnakes by Julie Fiedler and Coral Snakes by Nancy White)

Matching (stickers from Dover Publications)

Additional Work:

Snake Skin and Rattle – These are great finds that a family member gave to me. You can expand on snakes with older children. They may enjoy a lesson focused on rattlesnakes!

Art:

Paper Plate Snakes – Prepare paper plates by marking a spiral line from the middle of the plate until you reach the outer edge. Provide scissors, markers, tape and string. Children use scissors to cut the spiral line on the paper plate. They can decorate their plates and tape a string in the middle part, the head of the snake.

Geography: (second circle)

Need for lesson – Land Forms Card Set and Land Forms.

Review with the children some of the land form names. Demonstrate three-part matching cards.

Land Forms Card Set (JustMontessori.com)

On the shelf you can provide little water animals to go with the pitcher used to fill the land form. Children enjoy using the animals in the water. Have two towels with the work. A small one to dry the animals with and a larger one to place the land form itself on as a work mat.