Last week we found an Eastern Box Turtle on the playground! It was super exciting and interesting! We have started building a unit around turtles to build on this spark of interest.
The day we found him, we talked about how to hold him safely. Any animal that has a mouth could bite, so use two hands and keep them away from his mouth. He eats food like leaves and berries, meal worms, and buggies.
(We know he is a male because he has red eyes, bright orange spots on his arms, and a slight indentation on his bottom shell which helps him stay balanced when mounting his mate.)
We talked about how his shell was hard like finger nails. When he feels scared, he can tuck is head, legs, and tail into the top and bottom parts of the shell to keep them safe. We noticed his toenails that help him dig. We observed that this was an animal with bones, dry scaly skin, and no hair. He does have eyes, mouth, and nose like us.
We read Mossy by Jan Brett later in the day. This beautifully illustrated book of fiction helps reinforce the idea that wild animals are happiest in their own habitat. Eastern box turtle populations in this area have been declining due to poaching for pets, getting crushed under cars or lawn mowers, and deforesting the turtle habitat. We released our box turtle after we handled him just like Mossy was returned to her natural home in the book.
Since we could not keep the wild turtle that we found, we further explored turtle habitats and what turtles need to live in the Block Area with turtle toys, stones, and silk plants.
We created several turtle homes complete with vegetation, pools of water, rock climbing mountains and more!
Seeing the children's interest and knowledge increase through stories and play following a real-life experience has been turtle-ifically awesome!
