Skyping about Snails!

With the start of our Snail Inquiry, we have been very busy sharing our daily discoveries and new learning not only on this blog, but also through other forms of social media like Twitter. New to our classroom this year is our very own class Twitter account (@rm_126)! This has been one way we continue to share our learning with our school community, parents and other classrooms. It is truly amazing how this one form of social media has allowed us to already connect with other classrooms from within our school district, province and world and converse around our daily wonderings and discoveries! 

To our wonderful surprise, Mrs. Lowe's Kindergarten class from Winnipeg, Manitoba has also been inquiring about snails in their classroom! After connecting with Mrs. Lowe (@joyofrunning) on Twitter, we couldn't wait to connect our classes and share our knowledge and questions about this fascinating living thing! In preparation for our Skype session, our SK's had no trouble remembering back to last year and our participation in the "We Can See" Project whereby we skyped several times with Kindergarten classes from around the world (e.g. Monterrey, Mexico, New York City, Keswick, Ontario)! To utilize their prior knowledge, we collectively made an anchor chart around what Skyping with friends looks like, sounds like, and feels like to help set the tone for this wonderful learning opportunity! Similarly, we met with small groups of students throughout the week leading up to our session to discuss some questions we would like to ask Mrs. Lowe's class to gain more knowledge and insight to support our learning about snails. 

On Thursday, September 26th, excitement filled our classroom as students knew that it was the day to Skype with Mrs. Lowe's Kindergarteners! Here are the questions we came up with for Mrs. Lowe's class along with her students' responses:

1. What do snails need in their habitat?
"They need their shells."
"They need food like flowers, plants and they need vegetables."

2. Why do snails have slime and not legs?
"They need slime so they can move."

3. How do snails hide in their shells?
"They attach themselves to their shells. They use their body as a door when they go inside."

4. What does your snail live in?
"Our snail lives in water in an aquarium!"

Picture from Mrs. Lowe's class blog of their Snail's habitat.

Here are the questions Mrs. Lowe's class had for us along with our students' responses (you'll notice we had very similar questions which was interesting since both classes were able to compare answers):

1. When do snails go in their shells?
"They need their shells to protect themselves from predators." - E.S.

2. What do snails eat?
"Snails eat lots of lettuce." - C.S.
"They eat leaves!" - M.P.

3. Why do snails have slime?
We wondered about this too and both classes think that it helps them move.

To conclude our Skype session, both of our classes came up with compliments for the other class:
Mrs. Lowe's class: "Thank you for telling us about snails."
Our class: "Thank you for teaching us lots about snails and stuff."

We also have one common question we look forward to researching in our classrooms: 

How do snails stretch their eyes? 

Stay tuned!

We are thankful to Mrs. Lowe and her Kindergarten class for sharing their learning about snails so far this school year! We truly look forward to connecting our classes again in the near future as we continue to 

learn more about snails! 

If you'd like to read up on their class blog click here:

 http://www.room8-adventuresinkindergarten.blogspot.ca