Show and Tell Tuesday: Beardies and Bugs

I am linking up with Stephanie over at "Forever in Fifth grade" for "Show and Tell Tuesday." I just have to share about my beautiful beardies!

Meet my new boy!

He is a three year old Bearded Dragon. I adopted him this week. He is quite large, about two feet long. His  name  is Reptar but I just like to call him "Big Boy."

Here is the baby bearded dragon. He's thriving!

He has doubled in length since I have had him. He is up to 10 inches from snout to the tip of his tail. He is shedding like crazy which is a great indicator of growth.

I bought a hornworm to feed to my bearded dragon, but it turned into a pupa before I was able to give it to him to eat! I put it in the net, so I could watch it change. This is a very large moth.  I may do this next year with my class. I found a site that has some resources on it http://earthsbirthday.org/bugs/hornworms

Back to the Link Up

Free Number Worksheets

Do you love using "Thinking Maps" and the "Handwriting Without Tears" curriculum?  I love using these two together when I am teaching about numbers.  Our current math adoption does not include lessons on learning to write numbers and some days I like to have a focus number that we work with for the day. I created this set of worksheets just for this purpose. 

DOWNLOAD HERE

Here is the number formation chart from "Handwriting Without Tears."

A note about grip:

"Handwriting Without Tears" recommends using short, thin, crayons and pencils.  This encourages children to use a pincher grasp, as they are unable to "fist" these tiny writing tools.  There are special crayons and pencils available through their website. However, you can simply break regular crayons into bits and purchase golf size pencils.  I have my husband saw my regular size pencils in half and that does the trick. 

This concept was a surprise for me as I have always been told that the "fat" crayons and pencils were developmentally appropriate. But after I carefully observed my students using these, I realized that these were too heavy for them. They did so much better with the small sizes.