Mr. Crabs Changes Shells...AGAIN!

 Mrs. Derringer was cleaning up the crabitat after school on Wednesday in preparation for the end of the year...when she moved the shells and went to pull Mr. Crabs out, "Gasp!" His shell was empty!

There were two very similar shells in the crabitat: the one Mr. Crabs had previously inhabited took on an orange-tinted color after we had the orange hermit crab sand a couple months back. The orange-tinted shell sat empty, with just a bit of water inside!

Mr. Crabs was found burrowed deep down in the sand...in the OTHER shell that was almost just like the one he had before! The shells even have the same little shiny spot on the side. They can be told apart by the color of the shell itself: the old one has the orange tint, and the new one looks cleaner and has a greenish tint.

We still haven't found a molted exoskeleton in the crabitat, but if you look very closely at Mr. Crabs' second pair of legs, you can see prominent hairs. According to our research materials, this is a sign of a freshly molted crab! We assume he probably molted and ate his exoskeleton...yum!

Mr. Crabs got a special salt water bath as a house-warming present!  :)

Hermit Learnit in the Classroom: Third Grade Edition!

 Hermit Learnit in the classroom!

Student Blog Post:

Hermit Learnit Parent Night 2015!

 Hermit Learnit Parent Night was a CRABTASTIC success!

 

Imagination Station: Hide Construction

 As we prepared for our Hermit Learnit Parent Night at the end of May, we spent time in the Imagination Station to explore possible alternative hide constructions based on the geometric shapes assigned in Math class. We invited our preschool Book Buddies to accompany us, and here were some of our creations!

Student Blog Post:

Hermies Deserve Presents Too!

Our hermit crab habitat project has come to an end! As a reward for all their hard work, we presented our hermies with a gift: a custom-made hermie hammock crocheted from all-natural jute! (Yes, yes, we DO spoil them!)

As soon as Mrs. Derringer hung up the hammock, Mr. Crabs surprised us all by getting adventurous and climbing right up onto it to check it out! Over the next few days, all the crabs moved behind it, using it as a new hide!

We also did a full clean-out of their crabitat and replaced all the old sand with fresh new coconut fiber. We added another inch or two of substrate to see if they seemed to like this better, and they burrowed down so far that we thought someone had crab-napped them! We really had to poke around carefully to locate them- Home Run was all the way down under the food dish, Mr Crabs was underneath the big blue plant, and Ranger was underneath the "I'm Crabby" sign.

We think that perhaps they wanted to dig deep to relax after all their recent crabitat adventures, and we are hoping that one of them molts before the school year ends so we can see what a shed exoskeleton looks like!

Group Six, Super Crab Paradise: Day Four

Student Blogger Post!

(The top picture shows the crabitat as we found it Friday morning!)

This is the last day of the crabtastic project. I guessed that no one would go in my tub, and I was right. No one came. It was very fun doing the project. I want to do it again! I wish it took more time...

Group Five, Cool Crab Mansion: Day Four