First and second grade students in the ARTHROPODS AND ARACHNIDS class studied about spiders, insects, and crustaceans.

Tuesday morning the kids were in a buzz over a lightning bug that had unexpectedly flown into the room.

The teacher, Ms. Janet Woodruff, also was showing the kids some giant cicadas.

When asked to explain her favorite part of the class, Willow Best said, “I liked learning about arthropods and arachnids.”

Elan Quintana remarked, “I liked learning about spiders.”

Woodruff read a book called “Tarantulas from the Spider Library,” and the kids looked very excited to learn about them.

Each day the kids would go outside to study bugs and identify them. Pamela Niditch said, “It is fun to look at live spiders.”

Instead of doing a big project, the kids did separate little projects each day. The kids also enjoyed painting pictures of insects.

The class, located in room 220 of the Heim building, looked like a lot of fun!

Imagine a world with nogtails, snidgets, and ashwinders. These demons resembling piglets, jewel-eyed rare birds, and red-eyed serpents rising from magical fires inhabit the mystical world of Harry Potter. Studying these and other monsters and beasts from all over the world can be exciting.

MYTHICAL CREATURES was a new class for Lycoming College for Kids and Teens in 2006, taught by Kyle Forsburg and Brenda Larson. Forsburg has been a CFK volunteer for many years and recently graduated from South Williamsport Area High School. He co-taught with Mrs. Larson, who has been the aerobic and physical fitness teacher for CFK.

The two enjoyed working together and said they learned many things; the most important lesson, however, was not to paint T-shirts on Friday because there wasn’t enough time for the paint to dry.

The class evolved from the very popular Wizard’s Workshop, created and taught by Ms. Rae Temple, and is based upon the Harry Potter books. Mythical Creatures is a course taught at Hogwarts Academy by the gentle giant, Hagrid.

The students in Mythical Creatures at LCK drew a 65-foot-long basilisk, which is from the second Harry Potter book, Chamber of Secrets.

They also worked on black velvet dragon posters, made door knob hangers and created other art projects while the Harry Potter movies played in the background.

Mobiles with fairies and pixies, spiders made out of Styrofoam balls and pipe cleaners, and t-shirts printed with mythical creatures’ footprints were also popular projects.

“The kids work together well,” said Larson.

“Making the mythical creatures… drawing or painting them” is Reilly Gossner’s favorite part of the class.

“I took the class because I really wanted to learn about mythical creatures,” said Ryland Smith. Nogtails, snidgets, and ashwinders were only three of the many monstrous beasts they studied.