Mondays are my afternoon for helping in Eleri’s class. I love the opportunity to get to know the children in the class. On this Monday, Eleri’s class was dissecting a squid as part of their study of invertebrates. Squid are cephalopods, which are the largest and most active invertebrates.

The class was paired off by two’s – Eleri was with Joey. Joey and Eleri were so funny as neither one of them wanted to touch the squid.

I learned many interesting facts about a squid in this class. Squid have eight arms arranged in pairs and two, usually longer, tentacles. The children counted the 8 arms and found the two longest ones used for eating.

The mouth is equipped with two sharp horny beaks composed of hard tissue that allows the squid to tear up bits of food. Eleri and Joey found a fish in the mouth of their squid when we began this exercise. The mouth is under all those tentacles. The children squeezed the squid at the base of the mouth to pull out the beaks. One child was to squeeze while the other child pulled out the beaks. I squeezed the mouth and Fredrick pulled out the beaks since Elle and Joey were not putting their finger in the mouth – too funny.

Time to cut it open – one child to hold and one to cut. Eleri went for the scissers while Joey “carefully” held the squid.

Once the squid was open, we found the stomach, the heart, the gills and the ink sac.

Then, the squid was flipped over and the head pulled back (which I did for them) to find the quill. Fredrick helped to pull the quill out since I was not getting any help from these two!

Next, the children cut open the ink sac.

Fredrick was paired with Jing Xi. I found this a fun photo based on how “squidish” the hands were on the two different teams.

The children took the quill and dipped it in the ink sac to write their names or draw pictures.

It was an excellent project to do with the kids. I was thrilled to be there to see their expressions while learning. Eleri didn’t touch much, but I am sure she can answer any question you may have about squid.