Insects and Our Tree

Dear Parents,

This week we completed our tree books. Children decided what colors to make their book covers. We added one more page on Tuesday, and everyone helped staple the pages together. We read all the books during circle. We remembered there are four seasons as we looked at our tree pictures.

We made a list of insects in our yard. The children have discovered: bees and bumblebees, flies, mosquitoes, ladybugs, ants, butterflies, slugs, spiders, roly-polies, worms, centipedes, and snails. 

We read The Icky Bug Alphabet Book, Beetles, Bees, Bumblebees, and Ladybugs. We got our plastic insect collection out, and some children looked in our books to identify the bugs. We counted how many legs and body parts an insect has and realized some critters on our list are not insects. An insect has three body parts and six legs. 

We colored, drew with special markers, and painted with gold glitter, to decorate cards for our mamas. Some children used hole punchers around the edge of their cards. One friend said as he punched, “Here are her eyes and here is her mouth.” And then, “That doesn’t quite look like her face.”

The cards were colorful and the children were focused and excited while they worked. 

Have a lovely weekend and a wonderful Mother’s Day,

Therese

A Seed Grows

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