Animals Are Amazing

Friday, June 19, 2009

Don't forget!

When was the last time you checked out the Room 106 Blog? Click on http://jrwilcox2.blogspot.com to see photos from Nancy's performance!

Awesome Field Trip!

Our trip to the Ontario Science Centre was incredible! We had a great time. You can see how much fun we had. Check out all the action at

http://theanimalsmeettheanimals.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Did you know that great white sharks they live in the cooler coastal waters of the worlds oceans. They hunt other fishes and animals such as seals. When they attack their eyes are covered by a protective shield. They swim very fast when hunting. They can grow to over 20 feet long and weigh up to 3 tonnes. The only predator a GWS knows is man.

Mountain Goat

Did you know mountain goats use their horns to protect themselves from predators (mountain lions, lynx, eagles). The young 'kids' learn from each other and especially the nanny goat. They eat grasses, fruits, vegetables and salt from clays and dirt's. The goats live in the western mountain ranges in North America. They can live 12-15 years in the wild and up to 20 years in captivity. In the spring their fur is a brilliant white and in the winter their fur turns to a whitish yellow.

Monday, May 25, 2009

African Grey Parrot

Did you know that the African Grey Parrot can live to be 50 years plus. They live in rain forests, mangroves and gardens in Africa. These parrots are the most intelligent birds and are often kept as pets all over the world. They communicate by screeching loudly and also can repeat human voices and other sounds around the world.

Bees

Did you know that if bees sting another animal they will unfortunately die because they loose their stinger. Bees communicate by dancing and buzzing around. Their predators are humans and bears and other sweet-toothed animals because their shelters get destroyed. There are many different types of bees living all over the world. Bees are very important to our world because they pollinate plants everywhere!

The Queen Angelfish

Did you know that the Queen Angelfish can grow to be 40 cm long and weigh up to 2.6 Kg. It gets its name from the speckled spots on its scales. It eats soft coral and small crustaceans. It lives in the western Atlantic ocean throughout the Caribbean. They also eat bacterias off of other fishes like a 'cleaning station'.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Red Eyed Tree Frog

Did you know that a red eyed tree frog can jump up to 2 M between trees. They also eat small insects. The main predators of the red eyed tree frog are grass snakes and birds. They can be green, brown and grey. The frogs can grow to 3 inches. The four stages of their life cycle are 1. the egg 2. tadpole 3. metamorphosis 4. adult frog.

Elephants

Did you know that there are four types of elephants (Indian, African, Asian and Nepalesian). Did you know African elephants are the largest elephant. Elephants eat grasses , fruits and bark. An elephant can live to 50 to 70 years. My favourite part of my animal project was learning about their unique characteristics like the elephants in captivity. They can play soccer, paint pictures and play basketball. They also like to swim.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Hippopotamus

Did you know that a hippo when it opens its mouth it can eat one hundred or more fish at once. A hippo can live up to 45 years. They live in Africa (counties in east Africa, like Kenya). Hippos live in shallow lakes and rivers. All hippos are born in the water. They communicate by making grunting sounds and loud breathing especially when there is trouble around the young hippos.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Chimpanzee

Did you know that they can stand on their feet. They eat leaves and sometimes eats monkeys. They eat ants by placing a long thin stick in an ant hill and then the ants crawl onto the stick and the Chimp then eats away. They can live to 40 years plus. They use tools like rocks and sticks. Chimps use many different types of facial expressions to communicate.

Dingo

Dingos eat rabbits, kangaroos, snakes and rodents. They live in Australia and Southeast Asia. They live up to 10 years. They can grow up to 70 lbs. Dingos live in family groups called packs. They are a very neat looking animal!

Friday, May 8, 2009

Cheetah

My animal is the cheetah. It lookes like a cat. It can run fast. It can run faster than an adult gazelle. It is the fastest runner in the world. It lives in parts of Africa. It eats gazelles, zebras. A cheetah is a mammal. KALIAH

Elephant

My animal is an elephant. It lives in Africa and Asia. It eats grass and leaves with its large body. SHAWNA

Giraffe

My animal is a giraffe. It looks like a long neck and it eats leaves. It has a lot of spots. It reaches up to the tree and their babies are so cute. It lives in Africa. SAORY

Horse

My animal is a horse. Horses live in every country. Horses eat grass and hay. Horses are brown and light brown and some are black and some are white. Some people can ride horses by sitting on the saddle. TCHISSOLA

Polar Bear

My animal is a polar bear. A polar bear eats seals. It lives in the actic. It likes to swim. It can swim after it lost half its body weight. KATELYN

Whale

My animal is a whale. A whale is a mammal. It lives in the water. It eats krill and small creatures. A whale swims fast and it jumps high like some dolphins. They can roll over like some dolphins too. They are bigger than me and bigger than a car. A blue whale is maybe the size of a parking lot. Their width is like a parking lot too. NATHANIEL

Baboon

My animal is a baboon. It has hair and it is a mammal. It lives in the jungle. It can jump and play. ALICIA

Wolf

My animal is the wolf. It lives everywhere. It eats deer and rats and many more. It likes to play. It can run fast if you bother them. They are dangerous. Their bites hurt. I just stay away from dangerous ones. JOSHUA

Mouse

My animal is the mouse. It lives in people's houses and in little holes. It eats cheese. It likes to steal cheese from other mice. It can run faster than other animals like people, and sometimes cats. IVY

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Butterfy

My animal is the butterfly. It lives in forests and jungles. They eat nectar. They like to fly around the jungle. It can fly and the other animals can't, except birds. First the mom lays eggs and caterpillars come out. Caterpillars eat lots of leaves. It goes in a cocoon and comes out and it is a butterfly. MIKAYLA

Snake

My animal is a snake. A snake is long and eats rats and mice. It lives in the forest. It likes to slither after animals. It can outrun a rat. It can eat a rat whole. It can eat frogs. LUCAS

Horse

My animal is a horse. It lives all over the world. It eats grass and hay. It likes people to ride it and it likes to jump. It is a mammal. It likes to whinny and neigh. CLEVAL

Gazelle

My animal is a gazelle. It is a mammal. It lives in Africa. It eats green grass. It has light brown fur and two antlers when it is a grownup. When it is a baby it has light brown fur with white dots, but no antlers. It can run almost as fast as a cheetah. It likes to run really fast. ALYSHA

Tree Frog

My animal is a tree frog. He is green, has red eyes and has suction cups on the tips of his fingers. He lives in the rainforest. They leap very high. JACK

Lizard

My animal is a lizard. It lives in the forest and sometimes in the city. It eats bugs and leaves. It likes to run. It can walk up walls. They are sometimes green and brown. Lizards are reptiles. MASSIMO

Welcome to our JR Wilcox Grade 2 IB animal blog! We are studying amazing animals and this blog will be used to describe and teach you all about how amazing animals are!

Monday, May 4, 2009

IB Animal Project

Our latest assignment is an IB Animal Project. Here are some helpful website links you can use for your research

http://www.linktolearning.com/grade2science.htm (this is the site that we use in the school library)

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

http://www.wikipedia.com/ (your parents will have to help you read this one)

http://www.raz-kids.com/ (go to the bookroom where you can listen to books and read along)

iTunes has many great video podcasts about animals. In the left window of your iTunes browser you will see the iTunes store. Click on the store, go to podcasts, go to video podcasts, Science category, and search there. If you don't have iTunes on your computer you can download it for free from http://www.apple.com/ca/downloads/

What did you like the most?

My favourite part of this unit was:

the videos because they are cool. Or as Wolf Cub says "Aww. Sick!" because there are dolphins saving whales, what to do if a grizzly bear comes to you, making the blog because there are so many pictures and our ideas. Also my last one is very very strange, doing this! I like it because it's fun to me to explain why I like it. JONAH

reading the Poison book because it was really fun and I enjoyed it because I like reading about poisonous and venomous animals. MASSIMO

the Earth movie because animals are my favourite thing and that is why I have two pets at home. I have one cat and one dog. Did you know that all of the characters in the Earth movie were animals? I have another favourite of this unit. It is the National Geographic videos. I love them. Some are scary and freaky but some are cool and sweet. IVY

when we had our project. But we were watching videos too. My animal was a rattlesnake. Also in art we are doing sculptures and mine is a lion. RACHEL

learning about animals and discovering the way they live. It was really fun. It was my favourite unit. It was super fun! I wish Grade 2 would never end! JACK

watching movies and learning about animals and we have been learning about where they live and their predators and when we were in art we are making sculptures and it was so much fun. And we were reading a Poison book and there were so many cool things in the book. And the unit is so cool. ALICIA

watching all those crazy videos because they were awesome. They were so cool. They taught me a lot about animals, like if an animal was almost extinct or if an animal is so popular or if it is least popular or if it is the world's greatest animal. If there is a new kind of animal like the Super Cow because before my teacher showed the class that video I didn't know anything about a Super Cow. I didn't even know it existed! Another video was the Komodo Dragon. My teacher read us an article that said the Komodo kills with venom, not bacteria. My teacher read that to us and now we know that and some people in the world don't know that yet and we do! ALYSHA

when we read the Poison book. When we saw the venomous animals like the King Cobra. It is one of the largest snakes ever. JAHKOBE

videos because I just like the videos because lots of people say "Cool!". I love animals because when I was a baby I thought were animals were scary. IDELA

we watched videos and it was awesome and we saw a video of a hawk versus bunny. It was so sad and I cried. It was so sad because I love bunnies. I also like the video of the two headed snake called "The Golden Girls" and our unit is cool. It rocks! SAORY

watching videos because we learned lots of new things and we put it in our books and we are going on Raz-Kids and we read about animals on the computer. We learn lots of things! CLEVAL

videos because I love videos and everyone got to see and it was big too! My favourite videos were Sea Monsters 1, 2 and 3. MIKAYLA

the movies on YouTube because some movies are "versus" and some are telling you how to stay alive like "Bear Attack!". I like when one animal fights another one because it looks very cool. Some are really funny. NATHANIEL

when room 106 and room 104 wrote our Animal Song for J. R. Wilcox. I loved to do it. I like the Poison book, the Nasty Nature book and the Venomous Snakes book. I like videos. It told our class and now we can be knowledgeable and know some more things we might like or got to know it. And to know all about Earth's amazing animals. The videos are giving room 106 some good things on how to help all of the animals we got to help. KATELYN

the videos because the videos help me know how to protect the animals and not to do the wrong thing and not to hurt the living creatures and that is why we in room 106 are writing about animals. We made up a song and it is about animals. And we sang about not to hurt animals and not to throw a can of Sprite. TCHISSOLA

movies and videos because the movies and videos are so cool. We read a book about poisonous and venomous spiders like the Black Widow spider. The Black Widow girl spiders are venomous and the boy spiders are not. KALIAH

the poisonous animals and the movies about all sorts of animals like the Chinese Tiger and in the movie they said that Chinese Tigers are getting extinct and they also said people are throwing their garbage in their homes and they are killing all the Chinese Tigers and that is why they are getting extinct. MICHEAL

when we went to see the Earth movie. That was my favourite part of this unit because we watched a wolf trying to catch a baby gazelle and also when the mother polar bear came out of the hole and had two cubs. Then they went down this big huge snow hill and then they started to walk to find food. Also when the father polar bear tried to fight the walruses to eat the baby walrus. LUCAS

What actions can we take to protect animals?

Volunteers help salamanders
avoid roadway massacre

NEW HAVEN, Vt. - The black salamander with yellow spots sat on the roadside in the dark, ready to make a go of it. But it was not on its own. It got help from an escort - one of 45 people who volunteered on a recent night to carry salamanders, frogs and newts across the road during their annual migration to mate.

On rainy nights in early spring, roads between forests and vernal pools are hopping and crawling with activity. On some nights, hundreds of amphibians cross small stretches of asphalt to mate. But many don't make it.

From rural Vermont to urban centers like Philadelphia, human escorts, called bucket brigades in some places, help amphibians make it to their mating areas without getting squashed by cars. It's part education, part conservation, and part science.

"It's an extraordinary thing and people deserve to know about it," said Warren King, a member of the Otter Creek Audubon Society, who organizes a crossing in Salisbury. "And it needs to be protected. There are sites where many of the critters that are crossing never make it."

On a recent night, University of Vermont student Kaitlin Friedman walked with other volunteers along the asphalt with flashlights and clipboards, moving wood frogs, peepers, blue-spotted, red-backed and four-toed salamanders across the road, while jotting down how many they saw. They also kept count of vehicles, and the amphibians that didn't make it, trying to identify the flattened carcasses.

"It's pretty much the one time of year where you get to see a lot of salamanders in abundance and it's just really cool," said Friedman, 20, of Long Island, New York. "Plus, you know you help them across the road, you feel like maybe you're making a small reduction in their mortality rates, maybe, just for that hour or so."

John Kart, of Richmond, and his family have been helping salamanders cross the road for five years. On a recent evening, he said his 5-year-old daughter and two friends were as excited as the salamanders as they peered into a watery ditch. "We're a little early this year but often you come and it is just loud as all get out from all the peepers and wood frogs screaming down in the pond below," he said.

The half dozen cars that passed in an hour slowed down through the stretch of road dotted with flashlights, some stopping to ask what was going on. After two hours, the group had spotted 589 amphibians, and 97 dead ones.
But a few miles ahead, on a busier road in Monkton, the scene wasn't pretty. It was more of a slaughter. The escorts were finding more dead amphibians than live ones.

Within the first half hour they counted 20 dead spotted salamanders and 18 live ones, eight dead and four live wood frogs, seven dead peepers and one live one, four dead and one live eft or immature newt and 23 cars, said Steve Parren, a member of the Monkton Planning Commissioner, who works for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.
Two and half hours later, the tide turned - they had counted 205 live and 98 dead amphibians - but the numbers still troubled Parren.

"I don't think the area can persist with the level of mortality that we're seeing," Parren said.
The state is considering installing tunnels under the road for amphibians and other animals to use. The town has received a $25,000 grant to pay for the engineering. The full project could cost up to $350,000, said Parren.

Similar tunnels were installed in Amherst, Mass., in 1987, and have proved 70 to 80 percent effective, said Scott Jackson, a wildlife biologist at the University of Massachusetts.
But some wonder why anyone would go to such lengths to help salamanders.

The red-backed salamanders are the most abundant backboned animal in the forest, said Jackson.
"Even if don't know what would happen if they all died out at once, we could imagine some kind of ripple effect on the rest of the ecosystem because they serve as both predator and prey and are probably very important in terms of nutrient cycling in the forest floor," he said.

For Parren it's about preserving what is there.
"For me it's more we're losing the national heritage that belongs there," he said.

By LISA RATHKE Associated Press Writer

This is 'Faith'

This dog was born on Christmas Eve in the year 2002. She was born with 3 legs - 2 healthy hind legs and 1 abnormal front leg which needed to be amputated. She of course could not walk when she was born. Even her mother did not want her.

Her first owner also did not think that she could survive. Therefore, she was thinking of 'putting her to sleep'.

By this time, her present owner, Jude Stringfellow, met her and wanted to take care of her. She was determined to teach and train this dog to walk by herself. Therefore she named her"Faith"

In the beginning, she put Faith on a surfing board to let her feel the movements. Later she used peanut butter on a spoon as a lure and reward for her to stand up and jump around.

Even the other dog at home also helped to encourage her to walk. Amazingly, only after 6 months, like a miracle, Faith learned to balance on her 2 hind legs and jumped to move forward. After further training in the snow, she now can walk like a human being.

Faith loves to walk around now. No matter where she goes, she just attracts all the people around her.

She is now becoming famous on the international scene. She has appeared on various newspapers and TV shows. There is even one book entitled 'With a Little Faith' being published about her. She was even considered to appear in one of the Harry Potter movies!

Her present owner Jude Stringfellew has given up her teaching post and plans to take her around the world to preach that "even without a perfect body, one can have a perfect soul".

In life there are always undesirable things. Perhaps one will feel better if one changes the point of view from another direction.

I hope this message will bring fresh new ways of thinking to everyone and that everyone can appreciate that Faith is the continual demonstration of the Strength of Life.

Click here to see Faith on the Oprah Winfrey show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keGv4iTquI0

and click here to see Dominic...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRBWHBkAKww

I B Unit Animal Comparison

Your project presentation must contain the following information.
Check them off when you are done.

Room 104/206 - DUE: Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Room 106 - DUE: Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Animal I Choose Is The:

These are the expectations I must meet!

1. Habitats where they live?
2. Food they eat?
3. What are their predators?
4. How big are they?
5. What colour can they be?
6. How do they survive?
7. How long do they live?
8. What countries can they live in?
9. What are their special skills/characteristics?
10. Do they have fun in a family?
11. How do they communicate?
12. How are they born?
13. How are their shelters built and what do they look like?

Presentation Expectations
Speak loudly and clearly
Face your audience
Show an understanding of your topic

Animal Song

The Animal Song
Lyrics by J R Wilcox Grades 1 & 2
Music by J. Ball

This is a song meant to unite
All people, but we’ll keep it light
Listen up, these rhymes are tight
And we kids are out of sight!

Animals need us to fight
For those who crawl and those with flight
For animals who sleep at night
Or those who sleep when it is bright

We are all animals too
I am one and so are you
We are all animals too
We’ll tell you what you can do

Endangered species die they might
Like polar bears with fur of white
Protect animals even if they bite
Like a dog who’s filled with fright

Don’t toss away your can of Sprite
Or throw your bags like a flying kite
We can act like a shiny knight
Protect animals and do what’s right

We are all animals too
I am one and so are you
We are all animals too
We’ll tell you what you can do

Even if you don’t have height
You can make a difference
Quite!
Clean the earth, clean every site
It’s not that hard, it’s a delight!

Grab your friends, give an invite
And this song you should recite
Ask nicely and be polite
And everyone you will excite!

We are all animals too
I am one and so are you
We are all animals too
Now you know what you can do!

Animals Are Amazing - J R Wilcox Grade 2 IB

Friday, June 19, 2009

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Monday, May 25, 2009

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Friday, May 8, 2009

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Monday, May 4, 2009

Great White Shark

Mountain Goat

African Grey Parrot

Bees

Queen Angelfish

Red Eyed Tree Frog

African Elepant with baby

Hippopotamus

Chimpanzee

Dingo

Cheetah

Elephant

Giraffe

Horse

Polar Bear

Whale

Baboon

Wolf

Mouse

Butterfly

Snake

Horse

Gazelle

Tree Frog

Lizard

H1N1

Alligator

Lion

Shark

Zebra

The Scream

What did you like the most?

Lester and Clyde in real life!

Lester and Clyde

Lester and Clyde

Animal Families

Mammals

Reptiles

Amphibians

Birds

Fish

Golden Retriever

Tree Frog

Butterfly

Rattlesnake

Great White Shark

Local critters

Jumpy Joshuafish

Michealmonkey

Miss Di Manno's Goosey Adventure

What actions can we take to protect animals?

Willow the African Grey Parrot

Amy and Willow

Amy and Willow

Amy and Willow

This is 'Faith'

Faith

Project Research Sites

Should animals have rights?

Which creatures have the highest population?

I B Unit Animal Comparison

Animal Song

Animal Song