Hallow's Eve

Costumes are muddy at the bottom,
children are in bed,
and candy is traded and sorted.
Happy Hallow's Eve!

Hallow's Eve Day

All sorts of creatures have been using our jack-o-lanterns as temporary homes and restaurants. There are garden snails, slugs, ants, molds, and tiny, buzzy flies. It doesn't take long for nature to take over.

Hallow's Eve Countdown : 4

My Costume

• a hand-painted mask in Day of the Dead style,

• embroidered, red satin gown from the cedar chest that is several generations old (I think it was handmade!),
  

• silk scarf from my college days

Hallow's Eve Countdown : 3

more dead-people artwork by children

Hallow's Eve Countdown : 2

Children's art from St. Therese Catholic School

I'm a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) kind of gal.
I love All Hallow's Eve, and I
love All Saints or All Souls the next morning.

Hallow's Eve Countdown : 1

Saturday Walk

The same Saturday walk at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science was blogged here and here by my children.

Very Small

Can you see the very small wolfsnail on this piece of wood? I don't think I would have seen it, but one of my first grade students with sharp eyes did! If you want to read more about learning about these creatures with first graders, see my school blog. I'm having a blast.

This wolfsnail was found on Monday. It is being kept by first graders for study and observation. We have to locate very small garden snails to keep it fed.

This tiny wolfsnail was found in a discarded bottle cap. Can you believe that we found one even tinier than this? I can't get a good photo of it without some more power in my camera!

The large wolfsnail that we have been observing and caring for this week has met many, many students in the past few days-- probably about 150 all together. How's that for being an ambassador for very small creatures and their place in our world?

Thoughts of a Wolfsnail

"Hmmmm. I wonder what is up here."

"The lid is gone. Now's my chance!"

"Why am I in a monarch rescue container?
Uh oh. Now the snails are on the other side of the container."

"Retreat. Here comes the woman with the camera, and I almost made it. "

Hands-On

Hands-on with some of my students at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. . . these kinds of teaching days are the best kind of days.

Wolfsnail Capture

The children discovered the elusive wolfsnail today. It was climbing up the white, painted column in our outside foyer. We brought it inside, put it in one of our monarch caterpillar rescue containers, gathered a few hosta leaves (because Sarah's wolfsnails were on hostas in her book), and created a miniature, temporary habitat. My son gathered some garden snails for its food, but he doesn't want the snail to actually eat them. "They are so small and too cute," he claims. He's still feeling protective of the little snails.

I want to keep this wolfsnail long enough to share with my students at St. Therese and with classmates of my children at their respective schools. We found a wolfsnail in this same area back in the summer, but we let it go on its way, and it quickly did--it was no where to be found only minutes after turning our backs to observation. This front entryway to our house has also been a favorite spot for our house geckos and numerous mosquitoes at night.

I wonder how many wolfsnails live in our vegetation? I wonder what other creatures are out there that we haven't discovered yet?

Leaf Walk

My first walk of the weekend yielded this small collection. Oh, yes, fall is finally arriving in Mississippi! After an incredibly busy week of running a book fair at school, solo parenting, nightly 9 weeks test review, and a few other projects, taking this walk and finding these leaves renewed my spirit and reconnected me to something larger than busyness and expectations.

State Fair Fun