School ecosystem

Today the school had a Saturday school. This happens pretty often; earlier in the year the kids made pizzas, learned to play dodge ball, etc. Today, we went to the school Biotope, a small natural ecosystem on the school grounds. There is a small pond, fed by an underground stream (one of the parents told me this). There is a small flowing stream, several trees (apple, kiwi, possibly a guava) and all sorts of bugs and crawdads live there.

Today, each kid got a 16 space bingo card and a list of 16 things to find or do (different bugs to catch, leaves to smell or eat, things to see). We got some help with the list, but really, the kids were just having fun chasing bugs with nets and catching pillbugs (dango mushi) and ladybugs (tento mushi).

Without further ado, here are the pics, especially for you MG. :)

M and some classmates with a bingo card.

M is holding a bug container. She caught 4 or 5 dango mushi and made a little habitat for them. Then, since it was a catch and release program, she let them go.

N found several minnows or tadpoles but we couldn't catch them.

I'm inspecting M's dango mushi.

Each child has a habitat!

M really liked looking through the microscope at several bugs and a little plant "sticker" pod; you could see the velcro-like stickers coming out of it. I told her that the person who invented velcro got the idea from these stickers.

M and a classmate

one of the parents made a grasshopper out of grass. So cool.

I am not a fan of giant insects, even pretend ones.

Nat caught this. It is a Ka (か). Some sort of moth.

Happy memorial weekend to you in the US.