Phylum Cnidaria, Part 2: Corals and Sea Anemones

We have been having fun learning about Cnidarians.

The Phylum Cnidaria (also called Coelenterate) can be further broken down into Subphylums and Classes.

The Subphylum Anthozoa includes corals and sea anemones and

Subphylum Medusozoa includes jellyfish. 

Adventure Aquarium, Camden, NJ

Subphylum Anthozoac

Alex's (age 18, special needs)  notebook page

The nematocysts of sea anemones are different than those of the jellyfish. They usually cannot penetrate human skin, so they do not sting us.

Adventure Aquarium, Camden, NJ

"They spend their entire likes a polyps. They are brightly colored and they are benthic." We talked about that they are animals despite the fact they look like plants.

Quentin's (age 8) notebook page
Narrations, now that they are switching to writing their own, are getting shorter. Before I would write down their oral narrations and then they would copy them over as copywork. They will get longer over time as they gain more skill.

"This is a coral skeleton. It builds walls around itself." 
We read and talked about coral reefs.

pages from One Small Square, Coral Reef, Donald Silver

books:

• Lift-the-Flap Classification Chart of Invertebrates at Ellen McHenry's Basement Workshop
• One Small Square, Coral Reef, Donald Silver
• Exploring Creation with Biology, Jay Wile
• Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures, Jeannie Fulbright

additional ideas:

• Coral Reef lapbook at 2 Dynamic Moms
• sea anemone at Nilsen Nuthouse
• coral with puffed rice cereal at Family Fun

related posts:

• Phylum Cnidaria, part 1: Hydra and Jellyfish