Owls and Bones

At Summers-Knoll, integrating ideas across subject areas is an important part of the curriculum.  Sometimes connections are planned and sometimes they  happen by coincidence.  This week is a case in point.


Monday, Joanna lead the children in writing a poem during the morning meeting. She first asked the children for a subject for the poem.  One child said, "owls".  This idea probably came from a talk about owls the 1st/2nd graders heard while we were at Howell. 
The poem they wrote:
Owls in the night
They do not like the bright
They do not hunt in the day
They eat all their prey
Until their night is done.


I was had been thinking about the owls too, inspired by our trip to the Nature Center.  Over the weekend I found an interesting poem by Richard Wilbur, A Barred Owl .  This was our poem for the week.  The poem tells of a child who is quieted by learning the barred owl's call sounds like, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?"  (One of the many facts we learned from the owl experts in Howell.)


Later this the children dissected owl pellets. Since the children heard about owl pellets last week, I thought it would be interesting for them to see owl pellets first hand.  As we discussed the bones the children would see in their dissection,  I realized this went back to our discussions about bones with Dr. George.  The children were already acquainted with the names of the bones, and were able to quickly identified them and find which animal they belong to on the charts.  


And thus...
the evolution of ideas spin their way through out classroom.