A Hoot of a Kindergarten Class!: week of April 4

April is Autism Awareness month.

April 2 is the day we take part in Light It Up Blue each year to bring awareness to autism.

Since we were out for Spring Break, we all wore blue as a school and the kindergarten class learned about autism on April 4th.

Autism is a general term used to describe a group of complex developmental brain disorders – autism spectrum disorders – caused by a combination of genes and environmental influences. These disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by communication difficulties, social and behavioral challenges, as well as repetitive behaviors. While every country’s statistics differ, it is estimated that one in 68 children in the U.S. is on the autism spectrum – a 123% increase in eight years that is only partly explained by improved diagnosis. There is currently no medical detection or cure for autism.

The students also learned why we wore blue on April 4th for Light It Up Blue....

On December 18, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 62/139, tabled by the State of Qatar, which declares April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) in perpetuity. This UN resolution declares WAAD as one of only four official health specific United Nations Days and will bring the world’s attention to autism, a pervasive disorder that affects tens of millions. The World Autism Awareness Day resolution encourages all Member States to take measures to raise awareness about autism throughout society and to encourage early diagnosis and early intervention. It further expresses deep concern at the prevalence and high rate of autism in children in all regions of the world and the consequent developmental challenges.

For more information, visit autismspeaks.org.

We watched I Am Me!, a poem that celebrates students' differences and helps them appreciate what makes them unique.

We also watched My Friend Isabelle.

"My Friend Isabelle, created as part of the NDSS educational program Everyone Counts: Teaching Acceptance and Inclusion, is an animated story based on a children's book by Eliza Woloson originally published by Woodbine House. Viewers meet Isabelle, who has Down syndrome, and her friend Charlie. They learn that differences make life interesting and friends don't have to be exactly the same."

We then made a class puzzle. I explained how each puzzle piece is different, but they all come together to make something beautiful. Just like each student is unique, but together make a wonderful class and a fantastic school. Every puzzle piece (and student) has something special to add that no other piece has.

The students decorated their piece however they wanted, as their own.

Here's the students and Miss Shelby putting the pieces back together to make it whole again. :)

We focused last week also on the life cycles of different insects.

There are two kinds of females, workers are smaller, queens are larger. Males, called drones, are long at maturity. Though smaller, workers have longer wings than drones. There are currently 26 recognized subspecies of honeybees. Unlike the grasshopper, the honeybee has four stages in its life cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Eggs hatch in 28-144 hours, depending on their temperature. The larva that emerges is a small white grub. It stays in its wax cell, growing, and is fed and groomed by adult workers. The food that a female larva receives determines whether it will be a queen or worker. At 34°C, larvae feed and grow for 4-5 days, queens for 6 days, and males for 6-7 days. At the end of that period their cell is sealed by adult workers, and the larva molts, spins a silk cocoon, and transforms into the pupa stage. Pupae undergo a massive metamorphosis that takes about 7-8 days for queens, 12 days for workers, and 14-15 days for males. Once their final metamorphosis is complete, they chew their way out of the cell and begin their adult life. They will not grow or molt after emerging. Adult workers will live for 2-4 weeks in the summer, or as long as 11 months if they live through the winter. Males only survive for 4-8 weeks, and do not live through the winter. Queens live 2-5 years. The next stage is the larval stage where the larva is fed the royal jelly, pollen/nectar, and honey combination. Next the larva goes into the pupae stage where it caps itself into its cell to metamorphose into the mature stage. Queens normally take 16 days to reach maturity, the worker bees take 21 days, and the drone takes 24 days to mature.

The students then wrote one fact they learned about bees and then had to figure out how to paint their hand like a bee.

They added wax paper wings and googly eyes to finish.

Honeybees make honey. Keely

Worker bees have longer wings. Bennett

They get pollen for their babies. Libby

Honeybees make honey. Jaiden

Worker bees have longer wings. Jaida

Honeybees start out as eggs. Wyatt

Honeybees chew out of their cells. Ainsley

Queen bees take 16 days to become as adult. Charlie

Bees have the same amount of cycle stages as a butterfly. William

We watched Facts about Grasshoppers.

Grasshoppers come in many sizes and up to 5 inches in length. They can walk, hop

great distances and even fly. They have five eyes and no ears, but can still hear with a

special organ on my abdomen called a tympanal organ. Their large back legs are used

for hopping and making music. Their smaller front legs are used for eating and walking.

Then they made grasshopper magnets using clothespins!

Our last insect was the housefly.

Female houseflies are a little bit bigger than males. Like all flies, they only have one pair of translucent wings for flying and the second pair are only used for balance. Like many flies, houseflies have mouth parts like sponges. They mouths are made up of two fleshy parts attached to their lower lip. The lips have grooves that are like channels for the liquid food they eat. Housefly larvae have hooks on their mouths which they use to eat bacteria. Houseflies are found almost anywhere, especially places where humans live too. They probably came originally from the Eastern Hemisphere in temperate areas, meaning places that have seasons. Because their larvae grow best in human garbage and feces (they loved the poop parts!) , they are more common in urban areas. Their favorite environments are dung heaps, garbage cans, and roadkill. They also reproduce on rotted fruit and vegetables, old broth, boiled eggs, and even rubber. Housefly development has 4 steps: egg, larva or maggot, pupa, and adult. Houseflies can go through this entire cycle in as little as 7 to 10 days. This is why they can have up to 10 to 12 generations in just one summer. In North America and Europe, houseflies are common from July through September. In South America and Australia, they are most common from October to February or March. In warm weather, housefly larvae hatch in 8 to 12 hours. In cooler weather, hatching takes up to 24 hours. Houseflies eat milk, sugar, blood, feces, and rotting foods like fruits and vegetables. Houseflies need to be able to drink water, too. Their larvae also eat paper, and things like wool, and cotton. Houseflies are eaten by beetles and mites.

We watched The Life Cycle of a Housefly.