Animals In

Flight

Written and illustrated by Mrs. Shellenberger’s

First Graders

Stony Point Elementary School December 2005

We

dedicate this book

to

our families

and friends

and

a special thanks to

Ms. Lundgren for

helping us write and

illustrate it.

How We Did It!

At our class meeting, Masyn said she wanted to research animals. Becca and Caitlin thought it would be fun to study flying animals. We got lots of books from the school library and from our classroom library. We looked through them and made a big list. We wrote down dragonfly, flying snake, great horned owl, geese, sugar glider, and flying fish. It was blue paper and we named it, Critters That Fly. We had to figure out which animal we wanted to research. We looked for a good picture in a book for when we started to draw and we looked on the computer. We printed out information in Donna’s computer lab. We used highlight markers. We highlighted special words. They were important. We drew the animal in our sketchbooks and labeled it. Ms. Shellenberger said, “You have to label it.” Then we went to Mary Lou’s room. We used craypas to draw the animals. We used different colors and rubbed them in. Craypas are greasy. Sponge painting was messy but the colors were beautiful. We sponge painted the background for our animals. We had to think about where the animal lived. We wrote our words in our journal. We took the important words that we highlighted and put them into our own words. Then we sat at the computer with Mary Lou and typed the words. We glued the animals onto the background. We glued that and the words to black paper. We used fancy scissors and tried to glue everything straight. We liked sponge painting the background the best. Making the animal with craypas was good, too. We liked how messy the craypas were. When you use more than one color, it makes a very pretty special color.

by Becca, Masyn, Alexander and Hailey

Ladybug When the mother ladybug lays her eggs, the little ladybugs are inside them. Just wait… slowly, slowly, slowly, your color grows stronger. Your black dots appear. You are very hungry so you look for something to eat. Aphids will do nicely. While you are in the egg, you will grow and eat your own eggshell first. Ladybugs eat many garden pests like mealybugs. They have six jointed black legs and two black antennas. They have three body parts; a head, a middle part and a stomach. The legs and wings attach to the middle part. It has an exoskeleton that protects its body and wings.

by Emma

California Condor The California condor is the second largest bird in the world. They live in North America. It is a bird of prey and they look ugly! They have wrinkles in their baldhead. Their wings are the size of two people holding their arms out. They eat dead animals. They fight over the dead meat. Most of the condors died. Man shot them and poisoned them. They ate dead animals that were poisoned. Man saved the California condors by protecting them and now there are 164.

by Kyle

Black-browed Albatross Albatrosses are excellent flyers. They live at the South Pole. They have yellowish orange webbed feet. They have a yellow beak. They build a nest of dirt and moss. They eat stuff that they find floating around. Their favorite food is shrimp. They fly without flapping their wings. They glide through the wind. They fly up and down, and left and right.

by Schuyler

� � � The cock-of-the-rock lives in the mountains in South America. It has an orange crest on the top of its head. It eats fruit and insects. Boa constrictors and jaguars eat cock-of-the-rocks. It is the national bird of Peru. by Will

Blue Morpho Butterfly Morphidae

The blue morpho has iridescent blue wings. When the butterfly wings are open, it’s blue but when the wings are closed, it’s brown with eyespots. It is 6 inches wide. The adults drink the juices of rotting fruit using their kind of straw called a proboscis. It has two large white spots, and dark veins all over. It has 3 brown body parts. It lives in the rainforest of South and Central America. The caterpillar is reddish brown with white and yellow. It looks like it has little feathers. It eats at night nocturnally. By Hailey

Pteranodon How long are a pteranodon’s wings? The pteranodon was a flying reptile. Its wingspread was 25 feet wide. It ate meat, fish, crabs, dead animals on shore and ate in one whole bite. It had no teeth. The pteranodon lived 85 million (85,000,000) years ago. The pteranodon was clever because it was a flying reptile and it had a big brain. It had good eyesight and its eyes were on the side of his head. By Rodney

Great Horned Owl

The great horned owl is the second largest owl in North America. It is sometimes called the cat owl. It is a bird of prey and lives in the mountains of North and South America. It weighs about 3 pounds and has a wingspan of 35-55 inches. It eats squirrels, voles, rats, mice, some birds and small snakes. During the day, it tries to stand still or camouflage so enemies don’t see it. At night, it hunts because it has good eyesight and can see in the dark. My grandfather saw one. He lives in Yorktown. It was on a tree. By Alexander

Martial Eagle The martial eagle is the largest eagle in Africa and they weigh 14 pounds. They fly so high that even if you have good binoculars you can hardly see them. They dive at great speeds to get their prey. They eat squirrels, lizards, and impalas. They make their nest high up in trees. Martial eagles like to eat farm animals so sometimes the farmer tries to kill them. They are so strong they can break a man’s arm with one leg. By Devon

Wallace’s Flying Frog A flying frog does not fly, it glides. It glides with its webbed feet and it has extra skin underneath its arms. It climbs up to the top of trees with suction cups on its toes and then leaps off the tree with its legs and arms spread out and toes spread out, too. It eats insects. It lives in the rain forest. It was named after Alfred Wallace who was an explorer. They have huge eyes with sideways pupils. By Maysn

Flying Fish

Flying fish do not really fly, however, they do glide in the sky. They swim very fast, jump out of the water and their fins are like wings. Their fins open like wings but when they are in the water, they put them beside their body straight. They trick predators. If a shark or tuna comes, they leap out of the water. Flying fish eat small crustaceans like crabs or shrimp. They live in tropical warm oceans. By Becca

Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars turn into butterflies. The caterpillar eats the leaf and turns into a chrysalis blanket. You can see the orange butterfly wing inside the chrysalis. The butterfly gets out. The wing is wet and it has to dry off. Then you can see the whole body. They find more butterflies and fly to Mexico. When they have their wings out they fly really far to Mexico. In the spring, they fly back. Monarch butterflies eat poisonous milkweed. By Patrice

The Lurcher Brush-footed Butterfly

Nymphalidea

The Lurcher lives in Asia. The brush-footed butterfly has tan wings. First it is an egg and then it hatches out of the egg and is a caterpillar. It eats until it becomes bigger and bigger. When the caterpillar is all the way big, it goes into a cocoon. When it comes out, now it is a butterfly. Then it can fly. The butterfly drinks nectar from flowers like bees. They can drink nectar from any flower in the world. Sometimes butterflies go in flowers in your yard. Butterflies are cool because they fly fast. If you plant flowers in your yard, maybe you can find butterflies and touch their wings. By Raymond

Paradise Tree Snake Do Paradise Tree snakes have wings? No. They glide. They need to get away from predators fast, so they drop and fall out of a tree. Their body weight is not very heavy and they can flatten out their bodies. They live in tropical rainforests. They go a long ways to get to the top of a tree. They eat mostly lizards or a gecko. When they jump down from a tree, they look like a pretzel or an 8 shape. They are wiggly.

By Aaron

Cbme!Fbhmf! The Bald eagle is the bird of the United States of America, like our flag. It’s also the bird of Stony Point Elementary School. Their head is white. Bald eagles have large wings, and sharp feet. He has a sharp beak and black eyes. They live in trees. They have very sharp claws and very large wings and their beak is long and sharp. They eat fish. They pick up stuff with their sharp claws. They have a lot of tail feathers. When they’re babies, they can’t fly.

By Jordan

Grey-headed Flying Fox A flying fox is really a bat. They hang upside down in trees during the day. At night, they fly around and try to find food. They have really good eyes. They eat fruit and flowers. They spit the seeds out once they crumple the fruit and eat it. When they search for food, they have red eyes. They live where it’s warm all the time in Australia. They’re 3 feet long. The flying fox bat has a wing span of 3 feet. Flying fox bats are nocturnal. By Nathaniel

A flying squirrel can glide. They open their arms and legs and their skin shows. They use the skin to glide down and steer with their tail. This squirrel is nocturnal, sleeps during the day and wakes up at night to hunt for nuts. They eat plants, seeds, maple syrup, flowers and bark. Their arms are curled when they are not flying and then they open their arms when they are going to fly and make them really, really straight. They have a poofy tail and long whiskers. They have a big eyeball. They have long claws. They have little round ears. They live in forests in North America. By Caitlin

A l drican K drtrdl The American Kestrel eats insects. When they fly, they find food in the air. This hawk eats house sparrows. They eat rats and fish. They are white, blue, and brown with black stripes. Their eyes are big. They have a sharp beak. They sound like tweek, tweek, tweek.

by Shellaira