A Whole New World

Last Friday, at approximately 3:00 I received a package of 100 red worms. Worried that they would die over the weekend I went into a panic. I have never taught 2nd grade Science and so I was concerned about their well being! My other colleagues assured me that they would live in that box over the weekend and be just fine. Today, after forgetting my dirt at home on Monday, we "planted" our redworms. The concept of the whole experiment is to show students the work of the worms. We placed them in containers, watered the dirt, and gave them some compost that we collected in our school's woods out back. We also had a lot of worms and dirt left over and I put them in an aquarium that I stored in the attic. Many of my children are very interested in the changes that will take place in our containers. My surprise came during Writer's Workshop:
"What sort of work are you doing today as a writer?"

Many of my students that I conferred with today were writing about their worms, and the project. They were making predictions, giving them names, writing about the things they had seen, heard, smelled...
One boy discussed with me at length his learning. "You know Mrs. Amick, we created their world right here in our room! They have everything they need right there in that container! Isn't it cool to think that right now there are 100 worms working and doing their thing while we are here doing ours?"

I guess I didn't see it as that important! I really just thought that I was putting some worms into some dirt to watch them eat compost and poop it out! Boy, was I ever wrong!

Tomorrow: intensive group of students working on creating "worm like" words for stretching them into a story about a worm, or perhaps even a poem about what we're learning.
We'll see, the possibilities are endless!