Mrs. Hoyme reads aloud...

Poppy by Avi                     

Mrs. Hoyme read the book Poppy, A Tale from Dimwood Forest to our class. This book by Avi is a delightful story of a young mouse, Poppy, who stands up to the forest bully, Mr. Ocax, an owl. The story begins as Poppy and her boyfriend, Ragweed do not ask Mr. Ocax permission to roam about the forest. Mr. Ocax catches them and kills Ragweed. Poppy is devastated. Poppy's family has decided that it is time to move to another spot in the forest, because there is not enough food, where they are presently living. First Poppy's father asks Mr. Ocax for permission to move, and Mr. Ocax denies his request. When Mr. Ocax is asked for a reason, he says it is because of Poppy's disobedience in roaming about the forest. Poppy, determined to prove that there is another reason they may not move, decides to secretly go to the place they have asked to move to. While she is out in the forest, she has to be aware of owls and other animals that may try to make her a meal. She meets a rather grumpy porcupine, Ereth, that becomes are very important friend. She finally discovers the truth.

Our class admired Poppy, the brave-hearted mouse who had the courage to defend her values and her family. We  thoroughly enjoyed the story and liked following along as Mrs. Hoyme read to us. Each of us had the opportunity to illustrate our favorite scene from the book. Here are a few examples of our work:

Emily, Shelby, and Briana's Skeleton	Sean, Alex, and Martin's Skeleton	Jozy, Kiley, and Brooke's Skeleton

From our study of Poppy, we learned the owl is the predator, meaning he kills and eats other animals for food. The prey is the animals killed; eaten by other animals as food. The prey of the owl is a variety of rodents, other small mammals and even some birds. The owl depends on these small animals as a food source. Owls will swallow smaller sized prey whole, while larger prey are torn into pieces. Fur, bones, and feathers cannot be digested and will not pass through the digestive system. The digestive tract of the owl is built so that the undigested material is formed into a mass and regurgitated by the owl. This happens about 12 hours after the meal has been consumed, and the pellet is deposited on the ground below the roost.

In our Science Class with Mrs. Hacker we learned about the bones in the body. As an activity to help us identify the many bones in the skeleton, Mrs. Hacker asked us to carefully examine owl pellets. We slowly loosened the hair, being very careful not to break anything we might discover. There we found it: a jaw bone, a pair of large rodent teeth, hip bones, leg bones, backbones and even tiny claws. It was a collection of loose skeletons of rodents such as moles, rats, mice, birds. Maybe even Ragweed! We attempted to reconstruct the skeleton using the treasures we found in the pellets. What fun we had with this activity. It helped us name the bones of the body.

Here we are at work:.

Kelsey, Dana, Zach G., Trever, and Brandon reconstructing rodent skeletons.	Chad, Sean, Jamie, and Ryan searching an owl pellets for rodent bones.	Zach B. is working hard on placing the pieces on the paper.
Alex and Martin are working on identifying those pieces.	Brooke, Kiley, and Jozy worked hard on their skeleton.	Caitlin, Brittanee, and Erica Rose are working like troopers.
	Emily, Shelby, and Brianna are 3 friends on a skeleton adventure.

Each student in the class created a drawing of their favorite scene from the book Poppy by Avi. Here are just a few:

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