He built us a fish model and the kindergartners impressed him with our knowledge as we identified all the parts of the fish. We learned the names and purposes of some of the fins and then learned about sharks and saw some shark teeth.
In addition to teaching us about the characteristics of a fish and showing us his Super Fish, he talked about other creatures we will see at the New England Aquarium and their animal families. He shared lots of fun facts and taught us many new big vocabulary words. Be sure to ask us about vertebrates vs invertebrates and what an exoskeleton is. We talked about penguins. Can you believe we will see birds at the Aquarium?!
The mollusks family was very interesting. We saw and touched the shells of mussels, scallops and oysters. The oyster even had a pearl in the making in it!
We also saw snails, whelks and conchs. Mr. Musselman explained that the noise we hear when we hold the large shells to our ears is an echo bouncing off the chambers of the shell. At lunch today we took advantage of the extra noise, cupped our hands over our ears and tried out his theory. It worked.
The horseshoe crab and lobster were interesting. Did you know that the concept of a plunger was created after scientists studies the suction cups on the bottoms of sea stars?
And thinking about suction cups...............the octopus has lots of suction cups! Octopus are very strong and very smart. Mr. Musselman brought an octopus and let us touch it. This afternoon we were able to see some videos Mr. Musselman sent us. We watched an octopus open a jar and remove the contents for lunch (a crab). We also learned how an octopus at the New England Aquarium was so smart that it climbed out of it's tank one night and into another one to get a snack to eat! The scientists have put a nice cover on that tank! We are looking forward to our trip next week!
