Today’s kids are playing less than any other generation.
Play is losing out to TV, recess times have declined and many children in low-income communities lack safe spaces to run, jump and be active.
But play is essential to kids’ learning. Play helps encourage kids to explore and use their imaginations, increases their ability to store more information and can improve literacy skills by building connections by oral and written expression.
As the school year ends and kids have more free time, you can incorporate play into all of your school or program’s activities – even reading and learning!
Try using the books and recommended games below to incorporate play time into reading time.
Wild Things Tag
Players: 10 or more
Space: medium to large
Materials: none
First, read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Then, mark off a large area to serve as the Island of the Wild Things. One player, the “King of the Wild Things,” stands in the middle of the island, while the rest of the players (the “Maxes”) line up on either end of the island.
When the King shouts “Let the wild rumpus start,” each Max tries to make it to the other side of the island without getting tagged by the King.If a Max is tagged by the King, he or she becomes a Wild Thing. All Wild Things (except the King) must keep one foot planted on the ground at all times while still trying to tag the Maxes.
The Maxes continue to run back and forth across the island until only one Max is left untagged. The last Max becomes King of the Wild Things and the game begins again.
All Tangled Up
Players: 6 or more
Space: medium
Materials: none
First, read Hairs – Pelitos by Sandra Cisneros, illustrated by Terry Ybáñez
Next, have the players stand close together in a circle. Then have each player hold one hand with anyone in the group except the person standing next to him or her.
Repeat with players’ free hands – avoiding anyone standing next to them or with whom they are already holding hands.
Now have the group try to untangle itself without letting go of anyone’s hand. It takes patience and lots of cooperation!
If you have twelve or more people, split into two groups of six and see which group can get untangled first.
Need more playtime ideas? Visit the Read and Play section on the First Book Marketplace to find all of the books and activities created by First Book and Kaboom! to encourage playing to learn.
The post Make Time to Play! appeared first on First Book Blog.
By Rainer Foelix
Spiders are not exactly renowned for being colorful animals. Admittedly, most of the more than 40,000 spider species are rather drab looking. However, there are certainly several hundred species which are lively colored, e. g. bright red or bright green, and some are very colorful indeed. For instance, the so-called “peacock-spider” that shows a wide range of iridescent blue and green color hues, reminiscent of the plumage of peacocks or humming birds.
How do those colors in spiders come about? Usually they are due to certain pigments deposited in the cuticle of their exo-skeleton or the underlying epidermis cells. Some spiders appear bright green or red or yellow, due to pigment granules. Other spiders contain crystalline deposits of guanine and strongly reflect the incoming light, either pure white or bright silvery. And often coloration is not really caused by pigments but is due to a special light diffraction (interference) in their cuticle. A very fine lamellation in the nanometer range causes a shift of the wavelength of the incoming light and thus a whole spectrum of colors appears in the outgoing light. We all know this phenomenon from other natural objects such as mother-of-pearl, butterfly wings, or bird feathers. In spiders, such iridescent colors have been known for a long time but only in the last few years were they studied in detail.
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Figure One
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A small crab spider (Diaea), mostly green, but with a red abdomen.
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Figure Two
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Abdomen of a jumping spider (Phidippus) with red hairs and black scales.
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Figure Three
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Male jumping spider (Phidippus) with iridescent green chelicerae.
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Figure Four
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Leg segments of a tarantula (Poecilotheria) with blue and yellow hairs.
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Figure Five
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Blue hairs of a tarantula (Poecilotheria) undr the electron microscope. The ridges of the hair shaft (left) consist of a fine cuticular meshwork (right) that causes the iridescence of these hairs.
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Figure Six
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Peacock spiders (Maratus sp.) are among the most colorful jumping spiders.
Most colors originate from iridescent hairs or scales.
Among the jumping spiders are some species where the mouth parts (chelicerae) are strongly iridescent: reddish-purple in the females and blue-green in the males. In that case it is the layering of the cheliceral cuticle that is responsible for the brilliant coloration. In some other species these interference colors reside entirely in hairs or scales of the body. This is for instance the case in those most colorful peacock spiders, where some scales change from blue over turquoise to green, and others from yellow to purple and golden. Under the electron microscope those hairs and scales exhibit a meshwork of thin layers that ultimately produces these structural colors. These shiny colors are much more pronounced in males than in females (as in most birds) and it is very likely that they play a crucial role in the visual courtship dances that the male performs in front of a female.
Somewhat surprisingly, such iridescent colors also occur in the large tarantulas. Several species are deep blue and they are in high esteem (and highly priced!) among tarantula keepers. Some species may have additionally bright yellow hairs on their legs or golden-green hairs on their abdomen. Since most tarantulas are active at night, it is a bit puzzling why they are colorful at all. Their courtship is not visual but tactile, and no predator would be warned by bright colors that can only be seen under day light. So, it may well be that there is no specific purpose for having conspicuous colors, at least not in tarantulas. Perhaps the situation is comparable to colorful organisms living in the dark abyss of the oceans, in which colors only show up under illumination.
Since 14 March is Save-a-Spider-Day, let these colorful spiders brighten your day, or, as the old English saying goes: “If you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive.”
Rainer Foelix is recognized as an authority on spiders. He studied Biology in both Germany and Switzerland and earned his PhD in Zoology. His is also the author of Biology of Spiders, now in its third edition.
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Image Credit: Figures one, two, three, and four by B. Erb. Figures five and six by R. Foelix
The post Colorful spiders? appeared first on OUPblog.
