Last week we dissected squid – hmm, how do I make the word squid plural? Squids? Squidoo? Squidamarinkidink? – in Henry’s class. Notice I said Henry and not Hank? Last week, he put the kibosh on calling him Hank. I have been calling that child Hank since he was a fat little roly poly baby and now I can’t anymore? I’m trying to work through it emotionally – the little punk.
Here’s Henry, as a baby:
“I’d appreciate it if you’d put some food in my belly.”
I’m not sure if you’ve ever dissected squid before but it was quite the experience. To say the kids were enthused about it would be an understatement.
The squid did not seem to be as enthused.
Check this sucker out! Doesn’t he look like an alien? I mean, I’ve never actually seen an alien (ahem, that I know of) but I’m pretty sure this is what they are supposed to look like.
The squid had all kinds of crazy things you could pull out of it. This was the squid’s ‘beak.’ Pretty cool, huh? Doesn’t this make you think of that hilarious octopus scene in the book Portofino by Frank Schaeffer? Uh, did you just say you haven’t read Portofino? Not cool, reader! Not cool.
The coolest part of dissecting the squid was pulling the pen out. It actually looked like a pen!
The kids then pierced the ink sac and wrote with the squid’s ink. Well, some kids did. My table couldn’t because I accidentally pierced the ink sac about a second after we started the dissection. Whoops.
Yep, Coston’s name – written in squid ink.
Eli was pretty psyched about it too.
Eli’s fifth grade brother once told me that the doctor had to sew an extra piece of skin over his abs because they were so awesome they would blind people if he left them as they were. True Story.
Oh, the lovely smell of formaldehyde…The good news is I couldn’t even smell it. The bad news is the reason I couldn’t smell it is because I overused Zicam and now my sense of smell is totally shot. Good gravy, Zicam is amazing – except for that whole ‘destroys your sense of smell if you overuse it’ thing.
Henry did really well. We had a talk before hand about being respectful of the animal and not unnecessarily poking and prodding it. My high school Comparative Anatomy teacher, Mrs. Vought, taught me that.
Mrs Boyd may look like your typical fourth grade teacher but she is one tough lady! She handled those squid like ‘no big deal.’ Also, just between you and me and the internets, she totally rocked those overalls.
What dissecting didn’t do was put me in the mood for Calamari. In fact, it made me just a wee bit queasy for the rest of the day. So, if we head to Olive Garden tonight – you can have my share of the Calamari.