Ravel & repeat

Today's post about our latest take-home folder art project comes to you from guest author and first grader A.A.

Yesterday we made art with yarn. 


















First, draw a simple design (like a heart or a swirl or a spiral square) on a piece of paper.  Then get some cardboard and re-draw your design. 









Get some glue and trace it over your design and then put the yarn over it. 

Paint whatever color you choose (as long as it is a primary color) on the yarn.
















Do a pattern and this is how the pattern will go tint, shade, tint, shade. 

Stamp it on your envelope. 

Stamp it some more and you are done!

Monarchs among us

They're still here! 


They should be wintering in Mexico by now but highs in the mid eighties have fooled them into lingering into December.



Last week, when cold night temps were predicted, we rescued three large caterpillars.  They quickly hung themselves in J's and wiggled out of their skin to reveal chrysalises.  When I began to clean the remaining leaves from our critter tent, we discovered a band of tiny caterpillars. 

Now, we're trapped in the cycle.  I headed out to the garden to collect more food for these babies

. . . and with the leaves, I brought in more eggs! 

If you live in Houston, visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science to see Flight of the Butterflies 3D.  This is a beautiful movie about the science behind what we know about Monarch migration.

The Daily Digger

After I left school yesterday, I drove for over 7 hours up to Seymour, Texas where we dig in the red beds of the Craddock Ranch.  The dirt is red because of iron in the soil, and the site is world-famous for its Permian fossils. 

 

We were up for breakfast, dark and early at 6am. 

 

We used this level tool to take some elevation measurements on the site.  Dr. Bakker is interested in figuring out position of fossils in relationship to each other.  To get an idea of who was living with whom and how the ecology of the area looked during the Permian, we want to document which creatures we're finding in the same level.  So we measure the height of this tool from a known point and then measure the depth of each find in relationship to that. 

 

For example, what is the depth of Lois (a new dimetrodon Chris found this week--notice the fin spines positioned almost horizontally across the photo) compared to the area where we found Willi?  In the case of Lois, much higher.  So Willi probably never met Lois, as these two individuals probably did not live at the same time.

 

 

More finds today:

a piece of humerus?

 

a limb bone from a tiny amphibian

a dimetrodon jaw with teeth! that Chris found right near Lois

(see photo of dimetrodon fin spines above)

a trimerorhachis tooth with part of the jaw attached?

(Notice the characteristic textured amphibian bone.)

 

a piece of xenacanth shark spine

(Notice the two rows of spikes along this side of the spine.  If you were a predator, would you want to tangle with that?  We have exciting evidence that dimetrodon did!)

 

an armadillo--odd that it's rooting around in the daytime

 

I followed this badger to its home.  I'd never seen one before!

 

 

gorgeous red admiral butterflies flitting about in the quarry
 

 

 

On the road again!

Well, I don't have a Magic School Bus, but I do have a full tank of gas and a newly gifted "Yay! Paleontology!" magnet on my car bumper. 

Stay tuned!

Happy Halloween!

This guest post comes to you from Ms. Frizzle--Magic School Bus driver and science teacher extraordinaire!  She was spotted sneaking into my classroom, early this morning!

Oh, how I love Halloween!  At the top of the list of reasons is that every Halloween a very special friend of mine, Ms. S, asks me to substitute for her class.  The children are strangely suspicious but an inquisitive and very welcoming bunch.


I was even offered hot tea, with a selection of flavors!  (The children seemed surprised and a little disappointed when I did not choose chai, which they informed me is Ms. S's favorite.)

It is always a struggle to choose just the right outfit for the occasion, but since Ms. S had shared the wonderful conversation she and the children had just yesterday about dinosaurs, other prehistoric animals, and the Timeline of Life, I could not resist this particular dress.






As every good teacher knows, no outfit is complete without accessories.  Flying pteranodons seemed like just the thing!

Along with a fun little pair of stegosaurus earrings.




Now, I must tell you with sadness that I was unable to bring along Liz, but curiously Ms. S now has a lovely assistant named Miss Liz.  Perfect!  She may even have been looking just a little bit green today . . .

There was much enthusiasm about field trips today, but I know how disappointed Ms. S would be if we had a wonderful adventure without her. 

"Maybe you can use your school bus to take us back to the time when dinosaurs went extinct.  That would be good for science because then we would find out what happened to them!"

"Yeah, can we go on a field trip?"

Of course there's always a student who reminds me of Arnold.  "Hopefully not.  I don't want to go on a crazy field trip 'cause I get bus sick."

I will tell Ms. S how very much the children wish to go on a field trip.  You never know what Ms. S and I might cook up in the way of science fun . . . Bus, do your stuff!

Tickled pink

Fluffy has some amazing adventures, and sometimes I get to join him.  In December of 2010, Fluffy and I headed north to Seymour, Texas with the volunteer dig team from the Houston Museum of Natural Science to do a little more work on Willi, the dimetrodon. 

My job was to remove layers of rock and dirt from the "wall" behind Willi.  We were hoping to find the rest of his skeleton buried under the layers that had settled over him since his death (around 280 million years ago). 

As is often the case when your job is simply to move a lot of dirt in a hurry, I found something interesting.  I was hacking through a particularly tough layer of rock when I heard a different kind of crunch--and noticed a circular shape . . . the kind indicative of the bone around a Permian amphibian's upward facing eye socket.  I had found a skull!

Uh, oh.  Time to work more slowly and carefully! 

You'll notice that the bone doesn't look much different from the surrounding matrix.  When we returned over Spring Break of 2011, I turned the prep work over to Kathy Zoehfeld, who is more experienced and more nimble with the paleo needle than I.  While Dr. Bakker scoffed at its name (Fluffster 15, in honor of Fluffy and our classroom--Room 15), he got excited when he took a look.  It is the skull of a juvenile Eryops, an amphibian that looked something like a short squatty alligator. 

adult Eryops on display at HMNS

skull with arrow pointing to eye socket

Notice the dimpled texture of the bone? This indicates it is amphibian skull. The skin was probably closely attached to the skull, making it difficult for predators to get a toothy grip for a bite.

As Kathy worked, carefully removing the surrounding rock, we got even more excited.  There was more than just the skull--at least one front leg.

A trench was dug around the area of the skeleton and covered with foil and then layers of plaster-dipped burlap to make a plaster jacket.  Then the whole pedestal was undercut and rolled over so that the bottom could be coated in plaster as well.  Finally, Fluffster15 was taken back to the lab for more detailed prep work. 

In September (2011), I received this message:

Fluffster, of course, had that one leg pressed against the east side of his skull -- now Bob's discovered a second leg, tucked under his skull. Fluff is going to be a real cutie!  

I also learned of plans to include Fluffster in the new paleontology hall at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  Wowee! 

Fluffster is still in the lab, getting beautiful in preparation for its big debut.  Last week, I received the following update:

Wow! We're cleaning the down side--found perfect right thigh, and lower jaw, and left humerus, and some flat bones that are probably shoulder.



Exciting!

Star watchers

Just after First Contact

See that tiny notch on the left side of the sun?  That's Venus, passing between us and the sun.  Did you get to see it? 

I'm always surprised and pleased when throngs gathered to geek out over science, but it was beastly waiting in the shadeless line that snaked from the fountain with the giant sundial around the courtyard and out onto the sidewalk outside the Museum. 

How is it possible that I do not own a pair of eclipse glasses? 

When a friend called so say he'd found a less populated place for viewing, I hopped in my car and headed over to Land, Sea, and Sky where they'd generously erected three telescopes in the parking lot for free public viewing.

We were still sweating for science,

but the line was short enough to cycle through and peek into the telescopes as many times as we wished.

Remember that Venus is about the same size as the Earth.  About one million Earths would fit inside the sun.  The sun is BIG.  As we tried to explain our feelings of insignificance to her, a five-year old friend commented, "It's funny how we're so big, and it's so small."  But it's true.  We feel so big and important and significant, and the sun looks small.  It's hard for a five-year-old to hold the bigness of the sun and the universe in her mind, but it's also hard for me.  It's hard to imagine such bigness, until a planet the size of ours becomes a tiny dot overlayed on the sun--and I would be an invisible, insignificant speck on that dot. 

Yesterday morning, I listened with amazement to the story of how astronomers in the 1760's worked together (without benefit of telephones or the internet) to use measurements taken around the world during the Transit of Venus to calculate the distance of the sun from Earth.

In the ages prior to electrical lights, computers, and produce capable of traveling half-way around the world to a grocery store near you, astronomy took on religious significance.  I recently finished reading Turn Right at Machu Picchu, after visiting this Inca site last summer. 

Similarly, the Mayans built the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan

and the astronomical observatory at Palenque.

Today, we sometimes need a reminder that our world still revolves around the sun.

Transit of Venus

Don't miss this!  This is the last chance for anyone alive today to see a Transit of Venus.

For those of you in Houston, you can check it out at any of the Houston Museum of Natural Science three locations:
HMNS Main Location, 4-6pm, Free
HMNS Sugarland, 5-7pm, Free
George Observatory, 5-7pm, Admission to Brazos Bend State Park

Rice University is also hosting an Observatory Open House for this historic event: 4:45-8pm.

If you're not in Houston, check this map to find a safe viewing location near you.  (Warning: Do not look directly at the sun.)

Watch live on-line here.
Be sure to see it!  This won't happen again until 2117!

Stamp out boredom

What do teachers do after everything is packed up for summer and the classroom is dark and quiet?
Get crafty with fossil fun, of course!

This ginkgo has been on the edge of my mind for a long time, waiting for me to carve out (blame genetics for this awful pun) some time to get creative.  Meanwhile, gorgeous ginkgoes have been popping up everywhere.  I love the "living fossil" aspect of ginkgoes and their yellow fall fans.

A craft is a perfect way to relax and find focus.  When hands are occupied by a single manual task, other thoughts quietly step aside.  For me, carving a stamp is almost like a meditation in the same way that digging for fossils or weeding is calming--pulling away the excess to reveal something beautiful.  (There's probably also something about letting yourself get dirty and make a mess.)  For children, I find that art is so often the path to peaceful concentration. 

Print-making is an easy craft to try at home.  I used a Staedtler Mastercarve carving block, but you can carve your own image in styrofoam or even from an eraser!  Try this easy, kid-friendly version of the eraser stamp, make a foam pattern block, or create a yarn-art print.

For printing inspiration:
Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin
Maya*Made