Friday, May 14, 2010

May 10th-14th

This week we began learning about plants. We will continue to study plants for the rest of the school year. We started by learning about the plant life cycle, which starts as a seed and continues to an adult plant that is able to make it's own seeds. The students are experts at the life cycle of frogs and butterflies and were excited to hear that plants also go through a life cycle. We decided that the seeds of plants are like the eggs of a frog.

To begin our own observations of how plants grow, we planted lima beans in clear containers so we can observe what happens "underground" when a seed is planted. We also dissected (pre-soaked) lima beans and discovered there is a small root and two tiny leaves inside of the seed, which would become the sprout when planted. The rest of the lima bean is the food for the sprout as it establishes it's root system.


The weather was perfect for planting our vegetable garden! During our classroom meeting, we discussed the types of vegetables we would like to plant in our garden. We used our amazing artistic skills to paint the types of vegetables we would like to plant. We then became gardeners and carefully planted seedlings and seeds into the Dolphin vegetable garden. Everyone is excited to watch our plants grow into adult plants that we can eat.




Our outdoor classroom really comes alive in the Spring! Everyday we need to use our energy and large muscles to run, jump, swing, and climb. This week's sunshine allowed us to spend enough extra time outside to be able to appreciate other activities in our outdoor classroom. We enjoyed watching the birds and squirrels eat from our feeders. We also spent time sitting in quiet places with friends, blowing bubbles and watering our plants.


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