- Hello and welcome to another
episode of @Home with APS.
I'm Mrs. Kay, and I am
so lucky to be joined
with a lot of other
wonderful teachers today.
We have Mrs. Craff, Ms. Lori, Ms. Maes,
and we have a very, very
special guest, Miss Jacobsen,
who's going to share something
really interesting with us
at the end of the day.
So let's get started.
This hour is designed for
second and third graders,
but as always we welcome
children and adults of all ages.
We're so glad that you're
here with us today.
This week is going to be the last week
that we are focused on Earth
science and life science.
Next week we get to start a new unit.
I'm excited for that as well.
So let's get started today.
Our word of the day is,
whoa look how big this word is.
This is a huge one.
I'm gonna read it to you
and then you're gonna say it five times.
Are you ready?
This word is paleontologist.
Alright we're gonna say it five times.
Say it to the ceiling, paleontologist.
Say it to the floor, paleontologist.
Say it to the wall, paleontologist.
Say to the other wall, paleontologist.
Say it to your TV, paleontologist.
Wow this is a long word.
Have you heard this word before?
A paleontologist is someone
who studies plants and animals
that lived millions of years ago.
Wow and one of the ways
that paleontologists study
plants and animals from so long ago
is by looking at something called fossils.
Have you ever heard that word before?
Where have you heard that word before?
Yeah, maybe in a book, maybe
your class took a field trip
to the Natural History Museum.
Or maybe you watched a cool TV show,
and you heard the word fossils.
Now we are so lucky today
because Miss Jacobson
is going to show us some
really fascinating fossils.
And you're gonna get to read
about fossils with Mrs. Craff,
but before I turn it over to them,
I want us to take one
more look at this word.
What was this word again?
Paleontologist.
Let's look at the end.
Oh, I meant to bring, let's do this.
Just this part.
It says -ologist, exactly.
Did you know -ologist is a suffix?
It's a collection of letters
at the end of the word
that gives us some
clues about its meaning.
If we have a word followed by -ologist,
that gives us a clue that that's someone
who studies a specific science or subject.
So a paleontologist is someone who studies
plants and animals that
lived a long time ago.
What do you think a zoologist studies?
Yeah, so a zoologist studies
the science of living animals.
Have you heard the word meteorologist?
What do you think a meteorologist studies?
That's a hard one.
Yeah, so a meteorologist
is someone who studies
the science of the atmosphere.
Typically they study weather.
So maybe you watch the
weatherman a weather woman on TV,
and they tell you what the
weather is gonna be like today.
They're a meteorologist.
Now I want to make sure
that we have lots of time
to talk about paleontologists
and learn about fossils
with our other teachers, so
today you're gonna fill out
your Frayer model with the word
paleontologist on your own.
Remember when we do this, we
put our word in the middle.
That word is going to be paleontologist.
And then you're gonna
write the definition,
synonyms, a creative
sentence, and draw a picture.
If you need a reminder
on how to fill this out,
you can go to our YouTube channel
and watch the very first
episode we did together
on April 6th.
All right, are you ready
to be paleontologists
and study a little bit more about fossils?
- Hi friends, my name is Ms. Maes.
I'm a second-grade teacher
here in Albuquerque.
And my sign name for my DHH
friends out there is Ms. Maes.
My kids gave that to me
because I love mustaches.
So that's my sign name
and we're gonna do some,
we're gonna work with
some big words today.
But first I want to start
off and wake up our body,
so if you're sitting down please stand up.
And let's get our feet
shoulder-width apart
'cause we're gonna wake up our brain.
Have a little brain break after
the paleontologist lesson.
And then we're gonna raise our hands up,
and we're gonna stretch.
Try to touch the ceiling.
Now stretch that spine,
then we're gonna come down
and stretch it down,
try to touch the floor.
Now you're gonna stop midway
and we're gonna go to the right
and stretch our back this
way, taking it kind of slow.
Take a deep breath.
And now we're going to
come back to the left.
And one more time.
Is your body waking up, getting ready
for some more word work?
Okay, shake that out.
Now we're gonna do what I call,
we're gonna wake up our
right brain and left brain
and make them talk to each other.
We're gonna do the elephant trunk,
and we're gonna make a
figure eight with it.
So we can cross our midline.
So we're gonna do an
elephant trunk like this.
And now we're just gonna make,
did you notice it's called a lazy eight.
'Cause this is an eight, but
we're gonna make a lazy eight.
It's laying down, so we're
gonna do it this way.
And now we're gonna go up and around
and move our whole body.
Waking up our left side and
our right side of our brains.
Saying hello, work together.
Take some deep breaths.
And one more, and then,
now we're gonna just
take a big deep breath
and whoosh it out.
Okay, so now are we ready to
work with some really big words
that when you break them
down they are two words?
So you know what that's called?
Can you remember?
Compound word, it's two
words like pop and corn
that come together to make one word.
And the beauty of compound
words is that most of the time
they give us a hint about
what the big word means.
Pop and corn, so let's think about that.
Is it corn that popped?
It is, so let's try some others.
Let's see, what about the word birdhouse?
What are the two words
that make up birdhouse?
Bird and house, birdhouse right.
So when you're writing it, you could write
the first word, bird, and then house.
And then you can think,
"What is a birdhouse?"
When you see that big word, you
go "It's a house for birds."
So we have other words, can
you think of other words
that are compound words?
Let's try, how about the
thing that your mail goes in?
Do you know what that's called?
How about a mail box?
Do we all have a mail box?
Sometimes it's at a post office,
sometimes it's on your porch,
and sometimes it's out front.
But they're boxes that your mail goes in.
Okay how about, um, oh, this is a fun one.
This happened, I think it was last week,
we had a little bit of snow, but it wasn't
a storm, two words snow and storm.
Bring it together and you got snowstorm.
So I made a bunch of these,
and you could make some like
this where you put two words
and then you fold it
together to make one word.
Doorbell, door and then bell, doorbell.
So it gives us a clue that this is a bell
that's on the door, right?
So I have a question though.
What is this word?
Butter and fly.
So we put them together
and we get butterfly.
Now is butterfly a fly with butter on it?
So not all of compound
words tell us what it is.
It doesn't always give us a clue,
but I did do some research
where this did kind of come from,
and they said that there's some theories.
That one theory is that
they were churning butter,
and butterflies were flying around.
And so they started
calling them butterflies.
So that could be a reason.
And another theory was
that the butterflies
were butter colored but
they're definitely not flies
with butter on 'em, are they?
So my challenge to you is to find some,
write as many compound words as you can
in the next couple of days
and find some compound words
that don't give you hints
of what the big word is,
that the little words
when they come together
don't make, it doesn't
mean the same thing.
I have another one.
Have you thought of one?
I like it on pizza.
Mushroom, mush and room, if
you put it together, mushroom.
But what's mush, what does mush means?
It means like it's kind of soggy.
And room is a place in a building.
So is a mushroom a mushy room?
No, it's a wonderful vegetable
that I like on pizza.
A fungi, huh?
So my challenge to you is to please,
like I said, list all the
word, all the compound words
you can find and then
circle or star the ones
that really don't tell you,
the two little words coming
together doesn't give you a hint
of what the big word is.
Because remember, a compound
word is made up of two or more
smaller words that then make a big word.
So I hope you enjoyed
word work with Ms. Maes.
And we will do some more
word work as the week's come.
Next up is Ms. Lori,
who's going to continue
her writing lesson from Friday.
Remember we were writing a paragraph
about the the Moon and orbiting and stuff?
So thank you, and Miss Lori is up next.
- Hi, welcome back friends and writers.
I am so thrilled to be with you here today
to continue our work on
informational writing.
And I want to say what a wonderful lesson
that we got from Ms.
Maes on compound words.
I had never thought about
butterflies in that way,
so that was a great thing to learn today.
So friends, we are going to continue
with our informational report writing,
Today is really our big
day, it's kind of the end.
When we meet again on Wednesday,
we are going to just be
kind of hopefully being able
to look at the work we did
and that has been completed, right?
Because that is the end
of our unit for this time.
So quickly we're going
to refresh a little bit
about the things that we've talked about
over the last two weeks.
I'm hoping that you remembered to bring
your writing journal with you.
And that you have really
started this process,
that you have your
first paragraph written.
So let's just review really quickly.
Let me see if I can find my pointer,
here's the pointer, and go over this.
So, the informational report checklist.
Remember that can be
found on the @Home page
on the APS website.
Hopefully you've already
either copied it down
or printed it down.
So, we're not going to go
over the first five points.
We already did that.
I have added some new
things that are the things
that we need to get accomplished
today, before Wednesday.
So these are the things we
need to get accomplished
and get checked off so that our report
will be done and beautiful.
So the sixth thing is that
I grouped related details
in my body paragraph to develop my topic.
So that's what we're gonna
look at here in a minute
on our introductory paragraph
that Ms. Maes and I wrote together.
I finished it up so
that we have that done.
So we can look at that.
And then today we're
gonna hopefully talk about
using linking words and
phrases to connect your ideas.
If we don't get to that today,
we will finish that up on Wednesday.
And then lastly you provided
a concluding statement
that provides a sense of closure.
This is really important.
This is that last paragraph
that you're gonna write
to really wrap up your report
and let your reader know
exactly what they should have learned
through reading your report.
So here's your checklist.
Hopefully we can get
these all checked off.
Then we'll be good to
go to share our reports.
So before we look at the paragraph,
I want to come back to this page.
This is an important page
that we used to lay out
how we wanted our report to go.
My report I'm writing is on the Moon,
and remember we came up
with four important things
that we wanted to say
about our topic, the Moon.
And then I went and I numbered which order
these four things should
happen in the report.
But before we could get to the report,
we have to remember how
to write a paragraph.
So we have our graphic organizer again.
It can be found on @Home with APS website.
And here is our graphic
organizer to remind us about
exactly how to build our paragraphs.
We have our topic sentence,
which is our introduction.
Then we have our detailed sentences.
I have four of them because I picked
four things to talk about.
And then we have our closing sentence,
which is that conclusion.
And then we just repeat
this paragraph style
over and over again
until we get to our conclusion paragraph.
And then we just recap, which
means to restate everything
that we had in our
initial topic paragraph.
Okay, all right so let's look at how I did
with this paragraph that
Ms. Maes and I wrote.
And hopefully it's sticky
enough that it will stay.
I'm going to use some colored
markers as we go through
to look at if I was able to
cover all the information
I said I wanted to.
I'm gonna take this down
and move it over here.
And we're gonna look, so
here is our opening sentence,
which is our introductory sentence.
"The Moon orbits the Earth
"and is the brightest
object in our night sky."
So that was our introduction.
Then I came to,
well, number one, we used
that as our number one.
Then number two was
the phases of the Moon.
Let's see if we remembered that.
So this next sentence
should be the number two
on our graphic organizer.
"The Moon has different
phases which makes it look
"like it changes shape during the month."
Okay, so what we did
our work on last Friday,
Ms. Maes and I got that done.
We got the first two sentences done.
Now we're moving to sentence number three.
So number three is about
Moon mythology and legends.
So let's see if I got that on here.
"In ancient times there were many stories
"about the Moon having special powers."
So there's my sentence
that introduces the idea
of mythology and legends.
And then let's see, what
color have I not used?
Oh, brown so then that was number three.
And then now I should have a sentence
about the international
observe the Moon day.
So here is my sentence about that.
"Every October there is
"an international observe the Moon night,
"where people all over the
world celebrate the Moon."
Okay, so I have been
able to write a sentence
introducing each one of
the topics for my report.
Then the last thing I needed to do is,
now I have to have my summary sentence
that summarizes everything
that we've written about
to let the reader know
that we're moving on
to the next thing.
So my summary sentence down here says,
"There are many interesting
things to learn about the Moon."
And I put that there because
then it leads the reader
to wanting to know more
about what there is
to learn about the Moon.
So to finish my report,
what I'm going to do then,
I'm going to take my
paragraph graphic organizer.
And I'm going to start with a paragraph
on the phases of the Moon.
So I'm going to take
the notes that I took.
Dig those out, and I'm
going to use my notes
to develop a paragraph that is just about
the phases of the Moon.
That'll be my second paragraph.
Then my third paragraph.
What do you think the third
paragraph is gonna be about?
Let's look at the chart up here.
Let me move this down so
you can see the whole chart.
What is gonna be the third paragraph?
You guys are right, the third
paragraph is going to be
about Moon mythology and legends.
So then I have to find
my notes that I took
around the Moon mythology and legends.
And I'm going to use that information
to build a totally new
different paragraph.
Then my next paragraph is going to be
on the international
observe the Moon night.
So that will have a
paragraph just about itself.
And it'll have three details
that I have put in my notes
specifically about observe the Moon night.
Then my final paragraph
will be a paragraph
in conclusion, where I will wrap up and
remind the reader of the four things
that we covered in my report.
So I am looking so forward to you guys
being able to do that.
Now I'm going to show you
something really briefly
about a way to help you transition
from one paragraph to the next,
or even use in your sentences
to make your sentence
lengths different sizes.
So this is called linking
words and phrases chart.
This will be found on our
@Home with APS web page,
so you can pull this down
to help you in your writing.
So there's several
different types of words
that you can use in your writing
to help your paper run more smoothly.
So, some of the ones that
they have are if you want
to add something, like an
additional item in your writing,
you can use the word and, in
addition, also or as well as.
So if you want to do that
you can use a different way
to say it instead of saying
it the same way each time.
It keeps your writing fresh.
It makes your readers more interested
because it's not the
same thing over and over.
The other categories that
we have that we can use is
if you want to compare
something, like you can use
like, just like, similarly and same as.
As I'm reading these to you I'm thinking,
"Hmm, earlier in our
units we've been talking
"to you guys about synonyms."
Mrs Anna, Mrs. Kay, she talked
to us a lot about synonyms
in our Frayer model, so these
are kind of like synonyms.
So, they mean the same thing,
just a different way of saying it.
So we also have contrast.
So you can show how things are different.
Emphasis, if you want to show
something and highlight it
and give it more emphasis,
that's kind of like
the exclamation point, right?
That gives more emphasis.
And then if you want an
example but you don't always
want to say for example, for example,
you can say for instance,
including, or such as.
So that gives you some choices,
which is always a good thing.
And then if you want to give
a reason you can say because.
But we say because a lot,
so sometimes you don't want
to use that word too much,
so you can say due to,
or since or there.
And then the last one is if you want
to show a sequence of events
or something happening
in a certain order then these
are ways that you can do that.
You can say first.
You can say something happened
then something else happened.
Something happened first
and then the next thing that happened.
And then we'll end with finally,
which is the perfect word
to end with, finally,
because that is about
all the time that we
have for writing today.
I really challenge you to write
a fabulous informational
report and share them.
You can share them through our Twitter,
so hopefully we'll get
some samples of some of
the fabulous writing
that you guys have done.
And we will come back on
Wednesday and look at specifically
did we hit every single
thing that we needed to do
to make our informational
reports the best?
So that's great.
Now we have a fantastic
treat for you up next.
Mrs. Craff and Miss Jacobson
are going to talk to you about fossils.
And you are going to learn so much.
I'm so happy for you.
Have a wonderful day.
- Welcome friends.
Mrs. Craff, and I wanted to remind you
what we talked about last week.
And then show you some
of the amazing things
I have on store for you today.
So remember last week, we
talked about rock collecting.
Was anybody able to go out
and collect some rocks?
If you did, wonderful.
If not, don't worry,
they're gonna be there.
Remember, our rocks are at
least a million years old.
How about, were you able to
write that number, a million?
How many zeros did you come up with?
If you got six zeros,
you're right on, great job.
So today we want to talk about
another type of rock that you can find
but a really special rock called a fossil.
A fossil.
I'm sure you've probably found some
as you're out exploring but we're gonna do
a close reading on fossils,
which will explain to you
a little bit about the
two types that we have.
And then we have a special guest
that is a fossil collector.
And she's gonna show us what she's found.
All right, let's get started.
Remember, when we do a close reading
we're gonna read it more than once.
And do you remember what we
do the first time we read?
If you said just reading
for vocabulary and meaning,
you're absolutely right.
All right, so let's do our
first reading on fossils.
The title is "About Fossils"
"A fossil is the remains
of a living thing.
"A fossil can be the whole
part of an animal's body
"or just the shape or a footprint.
"This is a great way
to learn about animals
"that lived a long time ago.
"There are two types of fossils,
trace fossils and body fossils.
"Trace fossils are the imprint
"of a living thing in stone.
"Body fossils are the actual
"parts of ancient animals."
Here's our word for Mrs. Anna.
"Paleontologists are scientists that look
"for both kinds of fossils."
Okay, we had some hard words in there.
I know you knew paleontologists
because you went over that
with Mrs. Kay, but let's go back.
So remember, our first
reading we just sort of
think about what we read.
Well, we read about fossils.
We'd learn there are two kinds of fossils,
but let's dig in a little bit deeper.
So remember when you read
something more than once
you get to see more than
you saw the first time.
Remember our cruise
around the neighborhood?
We saw that house that had
maybe a cat sitting on the porch
and then we came back a second time
and we saw some incredible
beautiful flowers
they may have planted.
So every time you look at something,
you dig deeper and you see new things.
All right, let's see what
we see new in this reading.
"A fossil is the remains
of a living thing."
Think about that.
So we have skin and we
have bones in us, don't we?
And those stay, those are gonna stay,
they may take a time in
our Earth to decompose.
And so they're gonna be
there for a long time.
And our fossils are there
for a very long time,
sometimes because they are in stone.
All right so it's a living thing,
something that was breathing, right?
All right.
"A fossil can be the whole part of an
"animal's body or just
the shape or a footprint."
You leave a lot of
footprints when you run.
And it could be the part
of an animal's body.
Have you read about the
dinosaurs that they've dug up
and they can piece the
bones together to create
the whole animal so we can
see what that looked like?
Wow, okay, so you know more
than you think you do about this.
All right, let's keep going.
"This is a great way
to learn about animals
"that lived a long time ago."
So we're talking about
ancient animals, right?
Animals that lived in the past.
"There are two types of fossils,
"trace fossils and body fossils."
Stop there.
Trace, I like to trace things.
Have you ever tried to trace something
on a piece of paper?
You're making the outline of it.
That is exactly what
happens when an animal
is a trace fossil.
You can see the outline of its body.
Wow, that's pretty cool.
I didn't put those two things together.
And then a body fossil.
So you could find fossilized,
like we said, dinosaur bones.
And Miss Jacobson's going to show you
some other fossilized animal parts.
All right, "Trace
fossils are the imprint."
Hmm, there's a word I
haven't seen before, imprint.
"Of a living thing in stone."
Have you ever used a stamp?
Maybe you've made one in your
class and you put it in paint,
and you stamp it on a piece of paper?
You're making an imprint.
That's exactly what
happens when these animals
make an imprint, right?
Pressure remember our pressure and heat
with our sedimentary types of rock?
It pushes it in, it makes an imprint.
That's exactly right.
So it makes it in stone.
"Body fossils are the actual
parts of ancient animals."
So the actual parts means it is a bone,
it could be a leg or it
could be an arm bone.
Maybe it's the skull.
So all of those things can be fossils.
Ancient, here's a word.
What does that word mean?
Can you say it into your TV?
Ancient, look at that
ending, how we say that.
Ancient that means old,
yeah, so old animals.
"Paleontologists," you know
you know that "are scientists."
Oh, scientists, I take
science, I love science class.
We get to do experiments.
We get to study things.
A paleontologist must
be a type of scientist.
"That look for both kinds of fossils."
Sounds like an exciting job.
So you could be a paleontologist
when you go out and you look
for fossils in the Earth,
right, when you're looking for your rocks.
All right, so that was two times through.
Remember when we do a close reading
and we'd read a third time through,
so if you have a grown-up with you,
I would love to have you read
this close reading with them.
I want you to know that
it is uploaded onto our
@Home with APS, and you can
go there and download it.
It's been translated so
you could download it
and read it with your student.
If you're able to do that, wonderful.
And remember what we do
then, we can highlight.
And I know my highlighter didn't show up
quite right last time.
So you can think about
things to highlight,
that jump out at you.
And we can use marking the text.
We make it very simple.
Maybe you have a question
mark for an I wonder,
maybe a star for I noticed,
and a smiley face for I like this.
So let's go through and do
a quick marking of our text.
So, "A fossil is the
remains of a living thing."
I knew that, I'm gonna star that.
That's so cool.
And I'm gonna underline living thing
because that is the important
part of the sentence.
"A fossil can be the whole
part of an animal's body
"or just the shape or a footprint."
So, it can be the whole
part of an animal's body.
Wow, I did not know that,
so I am going to put,
I'm gonna make that my
smiley face because I like,
I would love to find the
whole part of an animal.
So that's a great way
to learn about animals
that lived a long time ago.
"There are two types of
fossils, trace fossils."
I might want to look into
that a little bit further,
so I'm gonna put my question mark there.
"And body fossils."
I want to do a little
more research on that.
And then I could write a paper
like Ms. Lori taught you.
So that could be a great research paper.
"Trace fossils are the imprint."
Remember that?
Oh yeah, I've done an imprint before.
I'm gonna put an exclamation point there.
I love doing stamps.
"That's an imprint of a
living thing in stone.
"Body fossils are the actual
parts of ancient animals."
So, the word ancient
threw me off a little bit,
so I might put a question mark there
and be able to come back to that.
And paleontologist, wow, that's one of
my new favorite words.
Paleo, and that ology, -ologist
as Mrs. Kay taught you.
"Paleontologists are
scientists that look for
"both kinds of fossils."
I love that.
I might highlight that
if I had a highlighter.
All right so that's three times through.
Amazing job, you probably
know much more now
about fossils than you
did when we started.
Are you excited to learn
more about some fossils
and to see some?
We've got some special guest
with us today, Miss Jacobson.
So I'm gonna turn the camera over to her,
and I'm gonna let her show
you some of the treasures
that she's discovered.
- [Miss Jacobson] Hi
Miss Mary, how are you?
- [Mrs. Craff] I'm doing well,
Miss Jacobson, thank you.
- [Miss Jacobson] Thanks
for having me here today.
Boys and girls, you can't see me,
but you will be able to see the fossils
that I brought with me.
And I was listening to your
close read about fossils
and about the difference
between trace fossils and body fossils.
And I have mostly body fossils here,
but I do have some trace fossils.
After all I was looking at
that as we were reading.
I want to start by looking
here at this particular one.
I'm going to hold this up a little bit
so that you can see it
close to the camera.
Let me get it here.
We've learned how to zoom
in a little bit better
and hopefully you can see that
this is a shape of a fish.
And the actual scales
and the bones of the fish
are in this piece of sandstone here.
And so the little scales that are kind of
sparkly and shiny you can see them there.
Would that be a trace
fossil or a body fossil?
What do you think?
- [Mrs. Craff] Huh, good question.
- [Miss Jacobson] It
would be a body fossil
because it's the real
animal that was in this.
A student gave this to me,
and I'm not sure where it
came from but it's interesting
because the fish has some
interesting little legs
or types of fins right
here that we noticed
would be different on a
fish that we might see today
if we went fishing in a
lake here in New Mexico
or somewhere nearby.
So that would be an
example of a body fossil.
Another one, a couple that I brought.
These two fossils, this
one here and this one,
these are crinoids.
And a crinoid is kind
of like a reedy plant,
kind of like what we might
think of as coral in the ocean
or freshwater type of plant
that other animals might live in.
And in this one, I'm going
to turn it around here,
you can actually see one
of those funny little
reedy looking pieces right here where it,
you can actually see it.
So this it actually has
the real fossilized remains
of the plant in it.
So this is more of a body fossil.
- Wow, and Miss Jacobsen, I'd
like to stop you right there
and think about, so fossils
don't just have to be animals.
We can find plant fossils also,
which is extremely
interesting and very important
for us to study.
- [Miss Jacobson] It's
true, and it can also be
possible remains of things
that animals or plants leave behind.
And so this next set of
fossils that I have here,
there's four of them,
these are all seashells.
And when we were talking
about trace fossils,
this one's a little difficult to see,
but this must have had a
seashell laying up against it
at some point right here
in this scooped out area.
And there's little lines
kind of like the ridges
on a seashell that have left their imprint
on this piece of rock.
And so this is a trace
fossil of a seashell.
And then these other three are
actually seashells themselves
that have been fossilized.
So the kinds of seashells
that you would see
that have kind of a spiral on the end,
that would be one there.
And then this one you can
actually see in the light,
you can kind of see
some ridges on this one.
And then it has the spiral
part toward the middle here.
And then this one is,
actually it has the shape
of a clamshell.
- [Mrs. Craff] Wow
- [Miss Jacobson] And so it's
got, where the hinge would be,
there would have been
another part underneath here.
And then the front part of the shell,
it has that shell shape around the front.
So an animal would have left these behind
after it died and this
was fossilized over time.
- [Mrs. Craff] And friends,
I think it's really important
to also note that when you find a fossil
it might not be the whole thing.
It might be a piece of something
and that's still a treasure, right?
Remember how old these are
and they do get broken up over time.
- They do.
- But when Miss Jacobson
was out hunting she found
these pieces of animals
and shells that fit
together, so that's cool.
So be on the lookout for that.
- [Miss Jacobson] Well
you know in New Mexico,
we live in a part of the country
that is very good climate
for the survival of fossils.
- [Mrs. Craff] Very true.
- [Miss Jacobson] And so
even though these animals
and these plants and
these remains may have
been out there for thousands of years,
in our climate, they're
not too difficult to find.
However there are some
rules about fossils.
And you have to make sure
that you follow those rules.
If you are in a national park
or in a national monument,
and you find fossilized material,
it is against the law to
take that out of that area.
- [Mrs. Craff] That's so good to know.
- [Miss Jacobson] So you
have to be very careful.
Now I've been very fortunate
that I have some friends
that live in the East Mountain
part of our community.
And they live in an area
that many thousands of
years ago was under water.
And so on their property
where they built their house
a lot of these types of
fossils came from that area
where they built their house.
And so that's how I got
a lot of the fossils
that I have here today.
But sometimes you can actually buy them.
And so if we look over here at this one,
this big piece right here,
is actually a fossil that I purchased.
And this is two different
kinds of water animals.
These are called ammonites.
It's like like a spirally type of seashell
that you see here, the spiral shape.
And then this long piece
that looks almost like
a dagger of some sort, that is a squid.
- [Mrs. Craff] Wow.
- [Miss Jacobson] And
so there are companies
that buy and sell fossils.
Where you can add to a collection as well,
and that's how I got this one.
But the ammonite that's here in front,
this is a trace fossil of
an ammonite that we found
out in the East mountains
on our friends property.
And it's got that shell
spiral part just like
these do here on the bigger fossil,
but it's very rough and sandy.
And it's not in perfect condition.
It hasn't been polished
or anything like that.
So a lot of fossils just look like this,
they're not the very prettiest
but they have the shape
and the imprint of what they were before.
- [Mrs. Craff] And
Friends that's a good time
when you go out and you're fossil hunting
or your rock collecting to
take that bottle of water
with you so you can put some water over
that to see maybe if you
have discovered a treasure.
You might not have known that
when you picked up this stone.
And then the beautiful, wish
you could see it in person,
but the beautiful polished fossils
that Miss Jacobson purchased are shiny
and just amazing with detail.
- [Miss Jacobson] Yeah,
you can kind of see
how shiny they are.
If I move them in the
light here in the studio
you can see them kind of glittery
a little bit with the light.
But my favorite fossils though
are two that I found myself
when I was walking with my
students in a stream bed.
And we had been walking
along in a little water area,
and we found this particular guy.
Looks like a gigantic bug.
- [Mrs. Craff] It does.
- [Miss Jacobson] Almost like a cockroach.
- [Mrs. Craff] Wow.
- [Miss Jacobson] This is a trilobite.
And when I found him he
was totally closed up
in dirt except for this
small little area right here
was sticking out,
And I saw that and there
were these little lines
and so I took a pen and
I kind of dug him up
out of the ground and the top came off.
And underneath it was this
wonderfully ridged-looking creature.
And when we looked it up in a fossil book,
we found out that this
would be called a trilobite.
And this is a rather large
one, although I do think
that they said that
there are some that are
much larger than that.
But then we found a little tiny one.
And this is a piece of sandstone
that this little guy
was, when we found him,
he was attached to this almost like glue
but he popped off and
became his own little,
his own little body.
He's the same looking kind of
bug as this larger trilobite,
but he's much smaller.
He is black, this one I don't know
what original color it was.
Now it's kind of a rusty brown color,
but it might have been
any number of colors
when it was living.
I don't know, but in
this piece of sandstone
there's other parts of other trilobites
that are embedded in that piece of stone.
So if I were to take a screwdriver
and try to pry some of this apart
I might find some other fossils in there.
But I kind of like looking at this rock
just the way it is, so
that I can remind myself
of how it was found when
it looked just like that.
- [Mrs. Craff] That's incredible.
And I love that we see the large animal
and then the very small
one that also lived, right?
And to be able to find those.
I do want to caution you,
friends, when you go out into
look for these fossils,
if you're going into somewhere with water,
please be sure there's a grown up
or an older sibling with you
so that you can be careful.
Because it's very slippery
sometimes when you're out there.
- [Miss Jacobson] It can be, it can be.
And fossil hunters need to be
aware of their surroundings
and what they're looking at.
And if they're on someone else's property
or on public land they have to be
very aware of those things.
The last bunch of fossils
that I have are over here.
And these are all pretty similar.
These are very common, and
all of them came from students
that I've worked with over the years.
These are pieces of petrified wood.
And so, these came off of
trees and other woody plants
that we may have in this
part of the country.
And they are fossilized pieces of wood.
And this one we're not sure exactly about.
It could be a piece of
wood, but somebody thought
that this piece right
here might be a bone.
And I haven't had a
paleontologist look at this,
but it might be something that
I want to do at some point
so that we can find out just
exactly what this piece is
that is stuck in this large piece of rock
and other fossilized material.
So there's lots of really
interesting kinds of things.
But you can tell that this is wood,
but it is now as hard as a rock
and could break like a rock
if I were to hit it with
something hard or drop it,
it might shatter.
So want to be very careful with that.
Now sometimes when you find fossils,
you might even find them already polished.
And this one, if you've
ever been to a shop
that collects rocks or
other kinds of fossils,
sometimes you'll see these polished.
And this little piece right
here is kind of shiny.
And that is also a
piece of petrified wood,
but it's been polished
so that it looks kind of,
I don't know, kind of silvery,
kind of sharp and shiny.
- [Mrs. Craff] Yeah, that's amazing.
- [Miss Jacobson] These others just came
right off the ground where we were walking
or where students were walking,
and they found them
and brought them to me.
And so that's how I have developed
the collection that I've got.
- That is wonderful.
I love to see this, and
I love that Miss Jacobson
was able to share this with us today
because there are so many
different types of fossils.
And what I want to challenge you to do
is maybe do a little bit
of research on fossils.
If you have a grown-up that could help you
that would be wonderful.
And she mentioned some
really large words in there
that I think would be really
interesting to look up.
Miss Jacobson had a trilobite.
Those are some ancient animals that lived.
And you saw the different sizes.
So that would be something wonderful,
if you're interested in
this, to look up and see
how you spell that word.
And then, the different types
that that are available.
She also mentioned the plants
that she found in the fossils.
So I'm really, it's
really interesting that it
doesn't have to be a part of an animal,
that those plants are so important to us.
And one of the words
she said was a crinoid.
I believe, I'm not sure if
I'm saying that correctly
crinoid or crinoid, look that up, too,
because those are some cool words
that you can add to your
vocabulary when you're talking
and you're being a paleontologist.
So some very big words
that we learned today
that are going to help you as you become
that scientific person, right?
As you're out in nature going
through things and looking.
So you had a lot of
information given to you today,
and a lot of big words.
So remember as you're going through this
work on your close reading skills.
You can close read with
just about anything
that you've done.
If you have a grown up, maybe
an older brother or sister
that can also help you with
some close reading skills,
it's really important to do that.
Maybe you're reading a book right now.
You could pull out a favorite paragraph
that is interesting to
you but you might want
to dig a little deeper because it has
some awesome vocabulary in it.
So think about that.
Think about reading
something more than once
to get a deeper meaning.
All right, well thank you students.
I'm going to sign off for now,
but I will see you on Wednesday.
