Highlights From Our Week
Writer's Workshop
This week during Writer’s Workshop, we continued to explore the concept of telling a story across fingers. The children identified significant details of their story through the use of different colored highlighters. This strategy enables the children to become better writers as they learn to add pertinent details to their story.
Thematic Concept: Observation, Growth, and Change
In order to answer our essential question, the children experienced the process of planting seeds. I provided the necessary materials for sunflower seeds to grow into a plant. Each child began this process with a flower pot. Then each child scooped an adequate amount of soil into his/her pot. A popsicle stick provided a perfect measuring tool to create enough depth for the seeds. The next step was to drop, pat, and sprinkle the seeds into the soil, and finish with a sufficient amount of water and adequate sun.
As part of our study of the growth and change of plants, the children identified the different parts of certain edible plants. As scientists we observed, and as taste testers we ate the following: snap peas, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, lettuce, and carrots. As a result, the children realized that we consumed an entire plant as evidenced below.
Celery Experiment
The children’s curiosity led to their question, “Does water travel up through a stem?” They decided to place celery in water with food coloring added, in order to observe what might happen. The children discovered immediately that water does travel up the celery stem. They arrived at this conclusion by noticing how colored water moved up the celery stem to the tips of the celery leaves as illustrated below.
Bringing the Outdoors to the Indoors
Through the use of the expressive art form of collage, the children created compositions using shapes and colors that are found in nature. This resulted in breathtaking masterpieces and newfound appreciation of the outdoors. This inspirational project was presented at a “Nature Play Conference” that I attended at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Gifts Of Love And Care
Happy Mother's Day! Enjoy the weekend with your family.