Additional Activities

After our visit to the pet store there was considerable interest in learning more about snakes. I took this opportunity to develop their research skills, especially since snakes had been immediately eliminated as a choice for classroom pet. We checked out several books in the school library giving facts about snakes. Each book was read and placed in the class library. A plastic snake which after three days was supposed to grow 600 times its original size when placed in water was purchased. I used this as a lesson in prediction and graphing.

Each child gave his/her prediction as to how long the snake would grow, and a bar graph was made with this information. Each day the snake's growth was measured. The students in their research discovered that each snake's skin had different patterns. In another activity each child selected a snake. Then they had to color it according to the pattern found in the reference book, make a label identifying the snake, and cut it out to be displayed.