Animal Kingdom Book: Worms

The second type of animal we studied for our animal kingdom book were worms. It started out with a worm hunt.

After we collected a bunch of worms, we had to observe them, of course. We found segments, blood vessels, heads, tails, little itty bitty hairs on the underside… and that’s about it. Because worms aren’t very complicated.

We talked about how worms are great composters and the benefits of having worms in the garden. We even made a little home for our worms to show how they move around the dirt. It is really hard to see much from these photos (ok, it is really hard to see in real life because the dirt is just a little too muddy) but pretty much all the carrot and lettuce shreds have been incorporated into the dirt/mud. Before and After photos. The complete transformation took a little over a week. Pretty nice!

I will admit, life was a little crazy the last few weeks, so instead of doing a lab to test how worms sense things around them even without eyes, we just watched a Wild Kratts episode on Amazon Prime. “The Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy.” (Holy Cow! You can just watch the whole thing on Youtube. Or right here, if you want. No Amazon Prime required.)

In the end, we covered all the material and information presented in our lab book, even though we didn’t do all the lab experiments.

I didn’t feel like finding more worms and subjecting them to bright, hot lights or stinky vinegar just so the kids could see that worms prefer cold, dark, wet places. We kind of already figured that out. Plus, NOBODY likes the smell of vinegar, be it worm or non worm. Better to just let the worms lie in their mud in peace.

You know, after I’d let a bunch of children rip those poor peaceful creatures out of their homes and poke, prod, and handle them as if they were nothing more than science specimens, a dime a dozen. Or free from the backyard.

I guess I’m not that much of a worm advocate after all.

There are lots and lots of books about worms out there, but my favorite is Wiggling Worms at work. Although we didn’t check out this book at the library for our biology worm chapter (I already have 96 books currently checked out right now), we’ve read this many times and is a great book to have on hand for any other wormy adventures.

Next up, mollusks!

I’m not sure how excited I am about that actually. Worms are easy to find. But how do I get a hold of snails? Well, I better figure that out soon.

Happy Worm Hunting.