So my kids school has a 2.5 acre bird sanctuary behind it.
When she first started going to her school almost 2 years ago, it was pretty much a 2.5 acre wasteland.
After putting in many hours weekly, me and another mom have pretty much transformed it into something pretty decent. I think this year the teachers have even started bringing out their classes and utilizing it more. We (Betts and I is the "we" btw...) even put on an art show in the bird sanctuary this year. I really think it renewed a lot of interest in the area, and even tho it was WAY too much work for two people, it effin ROCKED!
Oh yeah, so back to my point there, I swear I'm getting to it... anyway...
Since I'm one of the two people that's always out in the BS, my daughter's teacher started asking me if I'd take some kids out there once a week. It's been so fun and the kids love it! It's just so thrilling to get children out into their natural environment and get them to appreciate it. Mostly we just do art, but we also talk a lot about the plants and insects and try to find quail.
Right now my daughters class is studying plants, so I brought in a praying mantis egg fot them to watch hatch. They hatched yesterday, and it was so exciting for they kids! Today we took the class out to the BS and released them. I said if they wanted to, they could all hold one (there are about 200 in an egg!) The teacher told her class that if anyone wanted to hold one to line up. They ALL quickly lined up, and soon had mantis babies crawling all over them. They were so ecstatic, and it made me so proud so see all these kids holding bugs and loving it. We talked about what they ate, why they are beneficial or unbeneficial in gardens, and just admired how damn cool they are. Then we let them go (most likely to be eaten my lizards or birds, right?) It just rocked my entire day!
Oh yeah, and I failed to mention that the mantids closest relative is the cockroach. Why ruin the bug love?
May 3, 2007
No comments:
Post a Comment