The Fir group explored one of Francine's inquiry. She asked: "Is an inchworm a crawling creature?" Maddi added: "I see inchworms on strawberries." Most children thought inchworm is a kind of worm. So you could imagine the surprised look on their faces when I told them that inchworm is the name for the larvae of geometer moths. Jason immediately said: "Hey, it's just like the caterpillars! It's the larvae of butterflies!"
They are called inchworms because they are usually about 1 inch long and can be green brown or black. To imagine what it is like to measure our bodies with inchworms, we cut 1 inch long pipe cleaners to measure our body parts. The children giggled as the fuzzy pipe cleaners are placed next to their arms or hands.
Beware when you walk through our writing area! It is now the home of our giant spider, Spidy. The children eagerly put together Spidy's body parts. There is the cephalothorax, abdomen, 8 legs, 5 eyes (the children wanted 5 for Spidy), and we are in process of making a pair of pedipalps and a spinneret. The children learned that spiders help balance our ecosystem by eating lots of insects. Matthew said: "Hey, Spidy can help us catch the flies and mosquitos at school!"
