Classroom Pets?? Crayfish

Oh where oh where has my little "crayfish" gone???  Ok this is my 9th year in third grade and this has been the craziest crayfish year yet!  First of all, I've had almost all of my crayfish survive.  That in and of itself is a miracle.  I usually start with about 15 and because of survival of the fittest I end up with about 8 left.  This year I had 12 left.  Normally, I have kids knocking down my door to get one at the end to take home.  This year, I only had a handful.  I had no choice but to let my daughter take some home too.  She's in my class this year and has spent many a years hearing me tell her that she couldn't have one because they are for my students.  So, we took two home.  One, which we have name Clawless, (no wondering about that one) is safe at our house in a little container.  The other one which definitely has claws is at my house but the word safe probably would not describe it.  Yes, overnight, the little thing somehow got out of the container we had it in and is now somewhere in my home.  We didn't make this discovery until about 5 minutes before we had to leave for school this morning.  My wonderful husband is now at home looking high and low (mostly low) for "Maddie".  The story doesn't end there though.  When I finally made it to school, my very innocent custodian informed me that he found my crayfish.  I thought he was teasing me, but I came to find out that one of the ones left in my classroom awaiting a ride to another home got out and was down the hallway under a bench outside the first grade classroom door.  (Much to his surprise at 6am this morning!)  Craziness is the only word that comes to mind! LOL!!

Just a little reminder of what we are talking about here!  

Growing Plants in the Classroom: Hydroponics!

My last science kit goes back to the science center tomorrow, but I have to admit we have had a blast with this one.  Usually, I grow bush beans hydroponically because that is what the science kit calls for, but this year, my bush beans weren't germinating so hot!  I decided to try all of the seeds that we germinate in our minisprouters to see if they could be grown hydroponically as well.  I must say.....they can be!  We have growing in our tanks bush beans, peas, corn, and sunflowers.  I know I'm nuts, but I absolutely get a huge thrill out of watching plants grow day to day.  Below you'll see photos of our plants from May 23 and then again from May 28.  AMAZING!  Also, if you closely you'll see tadpoles swimming around in the bottom of the bush bean and sunflower tanks.  One of my students brought them in to show the class so we decided to add them in to our science lessons.  Why not! It's all about life cycles anyways.  LOL

May 23, 2013 Sunflowers, Beans, Peas, Corn

May 28, 2013

May 23, 2013 Peas

May 28 Peas

May 28 Bush Beans

May 23, 2013 Bush Beans

May 23, 2013 Sunflowers with tadpoles

May 28 Sunflowers with tadpoles

Corn May 28

Close up of our tadpoles

Crayfish, Crayfish, Crayfish!!

Check out my new classroom pets! Actually, they are part of our science kit curriculum from FOSS Structures of Living Things.  They are huge this time!  My students are loving them though.  Actually, they may be loving them too much.  Every time I turn around the kids are back at the tanks checking them out.  I'll post pictures again soon.  Right now we have 15.  I hope we have 15 still alive in the morning!!