This week we read some non-fiction books and articles to study bats. The students wrote bat facts. Look for this piece of writing in their Friday passbacks. After we read about bats, the boys and girls started asking more questions about bats that were not able to be answered from the non-fiction sources in our classroom. This prompted a discussion on how to do research and where to find other sources. Today when we visited the computer lab, we did some internet searches together on the Smartboard to find answers to their new questions. We found some great photographs and information. We were able to find most of the answers to their questions. For example, fruit bats eat mostly bananas and mangos and bats can be as small as your hand or some have wing spans of up to six feet.
Back in room 4, the class made their own bats out of construction paper by tracing their foot for the body and their hands for the wings. We will be adding them to a bat mural outside our classroom. The bats in the mural will be sleeping during the day and hanging upside down of course! We now know that some bats sleep under bridges, in trees, caves, and in old buildings. The students enjoyed making, tree branches, bridges, and spooky clouds for the mural. We were amazed by the fact that some bats can fly 60 miles per hour and can eat 1,000 mosquitoes in one hour!
Next week we will be reading Stellaluna by Jannell Cannon, a fictional story about a fruit bat who falls out of a tree and lands in a bird nest. Have a bat-tastic weekend!
Mrs. McAuliffe
