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
Seeds and Feelings
Dear Parents,
We began our week planting seeds in baggies. Everyone chose between chia seeds, red kidney beans, and popcorn. We folded paper towels in half, and placed them in a baggie with our seeds. We poured a little water in because the class knew that seeds need rain to grow. What else do seeds need? “Sun!” many exclaimed. We counted to see how many of each seed we had chosen: six chia, six popcorn, and five kidney beans. We taped our bags to the window, near the sun we made for our outer space study, and near the real sun.
We read Earth, How A Seed Grows, Flowers, The True Book of Buds, Under the Ground, and I Know the River Loves Me.
We also read Sometimes I Feel Awful and Steps and Stones, Anh’s Anger Story. We asked the class to name two positive and two negative feelings. They were happy, excited, sad, and nervous. The children gave each feeling a color: happy/orange, sad/blue, nervous/red, and excited/purple. We took turns talking about a time when we felt that way. We talked about how we go from a sad feeling to a happy one. Someone said they felt nervous when they had to get a shot, but felt happy afterwards when they got a lollipop.
On Wednesday everyone was excited to run through the obstacle course. During circle, two friends said they had never been through an obstacle course. We talked about how feeling excited is one of the feelings on our chart. A few people went through the whole course more than once! One friend said “I can go faster now!”
Thursday we were busy cutting paper with scissors. Some people were cutting shapes while others were making very specific things, like a red chair and a yellow sun. We observed our seeds during circle but didn’t see any growth yet. We checked our seeds in the dark closet - no growth there either. We read Up In the Garden and Down In the Dirt and Red Lemon. We took turns thinking of things we know that grow up from the dirt: flowers, grass, trees, and corn.
Friday morning we read I Was So Mad. We talked about ways to change our feelings from sad or mad to happy. After music with Alex we went out in the yard to look for signs of spring. We saw a black beetle, a red beetle, a few flies, a pile of very busy ants, a spider about to have babies, a dragonfly, a bumblebee, a black bug with white polka dots, and many robins singing in our tree.
It was good week,
Therese and Nicole