Dear Parents,
We started our week examining our seeds again. On Friday when we looked, none of them had sprouted. Children noticed some had sprouted white roots and green shoots while others had not changed at all. We filled out a chart—yellow for no growth, and green for growth. We hung them back in the window to wait some more. One person said, “Maybe the chia seeds are slow growers.” We’ll see. We looked at our seeds that had been hanging in the closet with no water and no sun—and no growth.
We went outside to play and some children found a dead baby bird in the jungle gym. What do you think happened to him? we asked. The class thought maybe someone stepped on him or he fell from a tree. “He’s cute!” some said. And, “He’s blind.” One friend said, “Definitely do not throw him in the trash, gently put him over there.” We did.
We used the long side of crayons and white paper to create bark rubbings from our tree's trunk. We also drew still life pictures of our tree with crayons. We noticed the trunk was brown and the leaves were green. Some children found a ladybug and we let him climb up our tree. One person remembered that our tree is a star magnolia. Someone said it’s called a star because the leaves are shaped like stars. Another friend reminded us that the flowers, not the leaves, are star shaped.
The next day we did leaf rubbings at our little picnic tables. The leaves on our tree were holding fast to the branches so we found leaves on the ground. They were mostly from the ivy that climbs the brick wall.
On Thursday we potted our seedlings from their baggies to cups. Everyone added scoops of dirt, their sprouting (or not) seeds, and more dirt. We added a few extra new chia seeds since those were not sprouting, and “kinda stinky” as one person put it. We set them on the windowsill to wait and watch some more.
While half the class made music with Alex on Friday, the rest of us made new play dough. The children made pancakes, hotdogs, hamburgers, meatballs, tacos, snowmen, planets, and deodorant!
Have a chilly spring weekend,
Therese