Book Club - Week 4, Rattlesnake Dance

This week was a little different. We asked the questions to a guest speaker instead of each other. We had a naturalist for the Metro Parks come and visit our class and bring a little visitor in honor of our rattlesnake book. What a huge hit that was! Everyone had questions and I was really surprised with how much these kids know about snakes. We have some definite reptile fans here.

We were able to gently touch a snake skin from our visitor. This snake sheds it skin about every other month.

It was really dry and we had to be careful when touching it so it would not break. It is neat to see how long the skin is when it comes off. The snake does not feel very well when it is going through this process.



Next we had a puppet demonstration to see how snakes eat their meals which is whole! They like mice and our visiting snake once got something stuck and had to have surgery. Can you imagine doing surgery on a snake?!

We had a lot of fun passing around the puppets.

Meet Pocket the Milk snake. Pocket is a girl and is 16 years old. The Metro Parks acquired her years ago after someone ran over her with a lawnmower. She had a little injury to her tail as a result.

I did not get the chance to touch Pocket (well someone had to take the pictures!) but was told that she is not slimy but soft.

We all had the opportunity to gently, with one finger, touch Pocket. She was very patient and some got to have more than one turn.




I love this picture of Hannah, pure excitement and joy in learning. I can't imagine missing these kind of moments with my kids and I am sure many of our co-op moms and dads feel the same way.

Thank you to Pocket and the Metro Parks for sharing your time with us. We all enjoyed having you!

A Note from "Gooney" Herself...

Had to share Lindy and Paige's exciting news. We wrote Lois Lowry the Gooney Bird author an email to tell her how much we enjoyed her books. They shared their favorite books and why they liked Gooney. Well I hit send and thought this lady must be pretty busy with another book due out this spring. I even told the girls they might not get a response with her schedule and such.

Well, the next morning waiting in our inbox was a very nice note from Ms. Lowry. She was very happy to hear from them! She told them about another book she has written that she thinks they would enjoy as well. Of course I went right to the library web site to reserve it. They were positively beaming. It was the perfect way to wrap up a great literature experience.

This will be something we will have to do more often. I know they won't always get answers but I think it is good for them to let writers, artists, creators of anything, how much they enjoy and appreciate their work.