All About Chameleons

All About Chameleons

By Isaiah Reid

November 21, 2008

Chameleons are reptiles. They have scales, are cold blooded, and they lay eggs. Chameleons can change colors to confuse their prey and to hide from their enemies. It’s tongue is longer than it’s body. It uses it to catch it’s prey. His eyes can look different ways.

Chameleons is an insectivore. He eats insects. He might eat some plants sometimes if he can’t find any bugs.

He lives in Australia and Africa in tropical places and some other places. Mostly they live in trees. That’s where all the insects are and it covers them.

A Chameleon lays an egg which hatches. And then it grows bigger and sheds it’s skin as it becomes an adult.

Isaiah’s Review of The Fire Cat

Isaiah’s Review of The Fire Cat

By Esther Averill

Pickles the cat was a good and naughty cat. He chased other small cats. He lived alone in a barrel. Then Mrs. Goodkind found him and took care of him. Next he chased a cat into a tree and got stuck. Then the fireman came and he took Pickles home to live with him in the firehouse. Pickles had to learn all the stuff that the firemen did. He went down the fire pole, jumped into the fire truck and helped with the hose. He got a fire hat and became a fire cat.

I liked this story because it was very funny. It was funny when Pickles ran up a tree and was stuck. It was very weird to me because he acted like a person. I would recommend this book to kids 6 or older to read. Littler kids could listen to the story and like it. Kids would need to be interested in funny stories about animals.

Monarch Caterpillars

Caterpillars

By Isaiah Reid and Mom

10/24/08

Brainstorming:

A monarch caterpillar

Looks like –bunch of stripes

Colors—white, black, brown sometimes, yellow

Life cycle—egg, baby caterpillar, kid, chrysalis, butterfly (adult)

Habitat: live in lots of places—not deserts.

Eat milkweeds—keep them down. The poison inside the milkweed makes the caterpillar and butterflies poisonous.

Migrate to hot places when it’s cold…end up in Mexico

How to catch one and take care of an egg: Find it with a magnifying glass. Put it in a jar with airholes. Keep it on it’s leaf. Keep it warm till it hatches. Release the caterpillar on a milkweed.

The Monarch Caterpillar

This is what a monarch caterpillar looks like. It has a bunch of stripes. The stripes are white, black, brown sometimes, yellow. It only gets a few inches long.

This is the caterpillar’s life cycle. First the egg is laid by a female after she mates. Then the caterpillar hatches after a little time. Next it starts eating to get bigger. Then he makes a chrysalis. Finally he turns into a butterfly.

The perfect habitat for a monarch caterpillar has lots of food. The caterpillar lives only in places that have water and have the right food. He needs lots of milkweeds. He needs to eat the poisonous milk because it makes him poisonous. Then predators won’t eat him. Monarch butterflies go to Mexico or other warm places in the winter. That’s called migrating.

Taking care of a butterfly egg is fun. First find an egg with a magnifying glass. Then put it in a jar with the leaf that it’s on. Then keep it warm until it hatches. Release the caterpillar onto a milkweed.

All About Mantises

All About Mantises

By Isaiah Kevin Reid

October 21, 2008

Praying Mantises are insects. They have three parts: head, thorax and abdomen. Their bodies are very fragile. They are many different colors: white, gray, purple, brown and green. They have claws and can turn their heads like humans.

Mantises eat bugs and other mantises. They have claws that snatch insects and eat them. They can eat something that is bigger than them. Some might eat lettuce.

Mantises start from eggs in an ootheca which is an egg sac. Then they turn into mini mantises without wings. Finally they shed their skin and a new one appears. They get their wings when they are adults.

Camouflage is something that helps mantises. It helps them catch food and hide from predators. Some predators are birds and snakes and other mantises. They live in tropical places but sometimes they live here. I have found mantises all around our circle on houses, in bushes, on plants, and on trees.

Here are some of my mantises that I have found this summer. Usually I catch them and observe them. Sometimes I try to feed them insects. Then I try to release them in our bushes so I can find them again.