First grade is studying living and nonliving things.  We put this turtle in water.  I asked the children to watch it for me and to tell me if it was living.  It grew and grew!  The children told me that although it grew like a living thing, it wasn’t living because it didn’t move on its own, didn’t need food, and couldn’t reproduce. 🙂  So how did it grow so large?  They had lots of thought provoking ideas.  One student said that it must be a sponge, but we squeezed it and no water came out.  Hmmm… We took it out of water and now we are watching to see what happens.  Will it return to the original size?  If so, how long will it take?  If there is water inside, where will the water go?