Turtles

I was so excited to see that our turtle class happened right around World Turtle Day! Turtles are such an interesting creature to study and many different ways you can focus your nature lesson on this fascinating animal.

For this month’s class, our friend Meg brought her pet Red Eared Slider turtle for everyone to observe and nature journal!

We spent time in our journals writing down the names of the bottom and top of the turtle shell:

And we talked about how the turtle grows and is attached to its shell. Meg brought some pieces of shell from her pet. Because the turtles are always shedding parts of their shell we were able to feel what those pieces were like! It was almost like a small shaving of plastic! The piece of shell that sheds is called a “scoot.”

The highlight of our time with Meg’s turtle was watching it eat a fish and a crayfish! The turtle loves catching its prey so both the fish and the crayfish were put in the tank alive and there was a few minutes of chasing the prey down before the turtle was able to pin it and eat it. The kids that were watching were mesmerized!