Mangrove Tangle Snack

Our recipe for cooking was inspired by this weeks' lesson on mangroves. I was researching online lesson plans to build my students' background knowledge before our visitors from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection education team came to our classroom. During my research I found this recipe, but made some slight modifications. We used salty rice cakes instead of plain rice cakes, since a mangrove grows in salt water. The water for our snack was made from cream cheese tinted with blue food coloring, however we added a dash of powdered ranch dressing mix for flavor. We used curvy pretzels instead of straight pretzels, since they look more like mangrove roots. The original recipe added a lettuce canopy, but we left that part off. For a final touch we added Goldfish crackers instead because the mangrove is home to many species of fish.

 

 

The children mixed an ounce of cream cheese, 1/8 teaspoon of Ranch dressing mix and 2 drops of blue food coloring with a plastic knife in a cup.

They spread the cream cheese water onto the salty rice cake island.

Next they broke their pretzels into pieces and poked them into the cream cheese to look like mangrove roots.

 

Then they added Goldfish cracker fish.

 

Care to try some?

Hands-on Mangroves

In Scott Foresman Reading Unit 2, one of the nonfiction texts is about mangrove forests. The text is modeled after a magazine article. The correlating main selection story was called, "Life in the Forest." After reading the two texts students were asked to compare the different types of forests. We actually finished this Unit weeks ago, but pulled the books back out this week to revisit the article about the Mangrove Forests. Through our Florida Black Bear Community Service Learning Project our class has made some connections with resource people around the State of Florida. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection Resource team from Fort Myers came to our town for a Community Education Night at our local Ag Center. The team asked if our class would be interested in learning about mangroves, since they were in town. My students were very excited about this opportunity and waited in anticipation for the team's visit. .

 

Several years ago, I met the author of this book, The Sea, The Storm and The Mangrove Tangle. I pulled it off the shelf and blew the dust off the cover. What a great opportunity to incorporate a rich piece of literature that is not part of the core reading program. Lynne Cherry is an author, illustrator and naturalist. All of her books have a common theme of protecting animals and the environment. I purchased several of her books and had her sign them. The message she wrote in this one was, "For Sheli, Please help protect the mangrove and the natural places near where you live, Lynne Cherry 5/2007" You can bet I shared this with my students.

 

Can't believe I was able to find this photograph of me with the author Lynne Cherry from May 2007.

 

 

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection Resource Team came to our classroom to teach us about mangroves on Thursday, February 27th.

 

 

Megan had the students engaged right away by giving each student a propagule (mangrove seed) to hold and explore.

Next, Megan introduced the students to three types of mangroves red, white and black, while Tim and Ariel put branch samples of each type of mangrove at the students' seats.

The students observed salt crystals on the leaves on this mangrove branch.

Here Arielle was assisting a student in identifying each of the three different mangrove branches.

 

Megan did the same.

This student found a propagule still attached to her branch.

 

This student tasted the salt deposited on this leaf.

Once the students had an opportunity to get to know their branches. Megan quized them by naming a type of mangrove and the students had to hold up their branch for that type of mangrove.

 

For a culminating activity, the students colored pictures of different animals that live in and around a mangrove. Once they were done coloring they brought their picture up to the Smartboard, named their animal, told the class where the animal lives and taped it on the mangrove habitat projected on the Smartboard.

 

The children also wrote one thing they learned about mangroves on an Exit Ticket (sticky note) and shared what they learned with their classmates.

 

What a great hands-on real world experience!

Cooking Up "Cherry" Connections

Today my class watched a Brainpop Jr. video about George Washington. We discussed the folktale of George cutting down his father's cherry tree. Then cooked up a little Cherry Cobbler.

 

Yummy!

Mystery Box

Today I introduced the "Mystery Box" in my classroom. I like to call it the "I Wonder...Box." I placed an unknown object in the box related to something we have been talking about in class. The students sit in a circle and pass the box from person to person. When a student is in possession of the box they can shake it and move it around. Then they must ask me one yes or no question about the object. This helps the students gather more clues in order to identify the unknown object. If the object is not guessed the mystery box goes around the circle again and students are allowed to add the sense of touch. Again asking yes or no questions. If the object makes it all the way around the circle again without being identified, I give additional clues.

The children did not guess the exact object, but they asked great questions. They deductedthe object was a seed that would grow a tree, so they were very close. The object was an avocado pit.

Next we watched a "How To Plant an Avocado Seed" video, we followed the steps and put the avocado in our science center with our sunflower plants. Last week we read, "Frog and Toad Together." The characters Frog and Toad grew gardens. We planted sunflower seeds February 11th. The students have been observing the seeds daily and recording their observations in a science journal. Most of the seeds sprouted within seven days.

 

At the end of the day, I told the class we needed ladybugs for our garden. We went outside to observe hundreds of little yellow creatures crawling all over our milkweed plant. I put a leaf full of creatures under a magnifying glass for students to observe more closely. Then, I read them a book called, "Are You A Ladybug?" to see if the information in the book would help them figure out why I made the statement that we need ladybugs. One of my students knew right away. He said because ladybugs eat aphids. This same student made a connection with another book called, "A Very Hungry Caterpillar," because a caterpillar eats, grows and sheds like a ladybug. So we talked about life cycles and metamorphosis. Which led to another book connection, our reading text this week was called, "I'm a Caterpillar."

 

One of my students told me we didn't need ladybugs that we could just spray the plants with soapy water. I asked him how he knew this. He told me his dad was putting soap on their plants at home and he asked his dad why he was putting soap on the plants. His father told him that soap gets rid of the bugs, but does not harm the plants. So, here these boys are spraying the plant with soapy water. We shall see what happens. During this conversation we talked about pesticides and how people should "go green" and use less harmful ways of getting rid of pests. One student asked why do people use pesticides in the first place if it harms animals and our water. That led to a conversation about needs and wants; supply and demand; and GREED (money). I'd like to point out we did not do any worksheets or write any papers, but we certainly had a rich discussion.

 

Next we looked at the aphids under a microscope. We ended our day comparing and contrasting how aphids look under a magnifying glass and under a microscope.