Gotta Love Slugs

We went out to the playground to collect leaves as part of our tree project, and came back to the classroom with a tub full of slugs.  Well, really, after we found the first one curled up in a tiny broken eggshell, how could we resist bringing them in for observation?

The kids were great about recognizing that the slugs were temporary guests so we could learn about them, not pets for us to keep or play with, and they wanted to make sure we took care of them properly.  We read The Slug by Elise Gravel, part of her Disgusting Critters series.  This immediately led into spontaneous scientific discussion of how to keep our slugs moist, what to feed them, etc.



I dug an old 10-gallon tank out of storage, and we used soil, moss, and bark from the playground to turn it into a small slug habitat.

I love the layers of leaning bark - the kids designed that themselves, and it makes a perfect multi-level slug hideaway!

We're currently misting the inside of the terrarium twice a day, and every couple of days we are changing out the food offered to the slugs (bananas, lettuce, leaves -- so far their favorite is cucumber).  I was a little worried the habitat would dry out too much over the weekend, but when I came in this morning, I found the slugs snugly tucked away in dark, damp crevices of their bark condo.

We've taken the slugs out a couple of times for closer observation.  I wear gloves and advise the kids not to touch the slugs, because we don't want to disrupt their mucus coating . . . but also because slugs think anything large coming toward them is a predator, and handling causes them to bundle into tight little defensive blobs that aren't very interesting to observe.

Students use a full-page reading magnifier to get a close-up view without disturbing their slug.

The Bug Chicks have a fantastic video about slug anatomy on their Vimeo site..  We watched it twice (by popular request), then sketched diagrams of our slugs and labeled their body parts.

So far, the slugs have been with us for about a week, and their popularity shows no signs of waning.

I'm planning a release party on Friday.  Maybe we'll make model slugs and "slug" slime to celebrate!