myGanBlog: What grows from the ground?

A look at this week:

The week started on Tuesday with a question about what Jewish holiday was coming up next. And when we got the answer of Tu B'shvat, I then asked what this holiday was all about and I was informed that it was the birthday of the trees! And this is how our conversation started as we talked about things that grow from the ground. Throughout the week we found out that items, such as the grass heads we made, start as seeds. They are planted in dirt and then need water and light to grow. Hopefully, over the next week or so our grass heads will grow their hair so we can give them a quick haircut and then they can be enjoyed at home!

On Tuesday the children enjoyed making special flower pots where they wrapped yarn onto the pots to help decorate them. Over the next week we will be making some flowers (and maybe planting some) to put into these pots! On Wednesday we introduced the seed activities. The children looked at five different seeds. We talked about their similarities and differences and then put them all together for the children to sort, which is an activity that continued throughout the week. We also had the chance to do a writing exercise about items that grow from the ground. In home living the children pretended to plant a garden and then used their grown vegetables in the kitchen to make food. And in blocks the children tried to build trees and gardens. In art we used tree stamps to make a tree mural for our world wall. Overall, we had a nice introduction to how things grow from the ground.

We also spent some time working on word/picture recognition. The children, as a group, took words and tried to match the words to the pictures. They had a lot of fun working on this.

What the children have been saying:

Once again, it is just so nice to hear when the children ask for others to sit next to them or when someone is hurt the children ask if they are ok. The nice thing is the answer is normally that the person is fine. Although there are times when the children do argue, they are really learning how to get along with each other and be nice to each other!

A look at next week:

We will be continuing to discuss ideas about Tu B'shvat. We will be doing more with dirt, the worms and plants. Next week we will also be reading the book, "Stone Soup." Then we will be writing our own class book about what to put into our pot to make our own stone soup. We also will be attempting to make stone soup as a class!

Decorating the cups to make grass heads