myGanBlog: One Seed Went

to the window!

A look at this week:

Actually, three seeds per child went to the window. This week we used Eric Carle books to visit nature. We talked about clouds and seeds. On Monday, we started our discussion by taking sunflower seeds and putting them in a wet paper towel. The paper towel was placed in a plastic bag and then we taped the bag in the window. When we checked on the bags today, every child had at least one seed that had the start to a root growing! In addition to our new planting experiment, the children enjoyed many other seed and flower related activities. In math this week the children picked some flowers and colored them in. Then they glued the flowers into a pattern. We also looked at some of the plants we already have growing in our garden. We took a few out of the dirt so we could talk about the roots of a plant. And then the children also enjoyed going to blocks and building flowers and going to home living to play in the sand box as they were pretending they were gardeners. In writing we also wrote about where our seeds went, just like in the story "The Tiny Seed." Each child wrote about where their seed would go and then they drew a picture to match what they wrote and glued a seed onto the paper. And in art the children were able to take colored popcorn seeds and make a popcorn mosaic.

We also had many exciting activities that centered around the idea of clouds. The flannel board was open this week for the children to recreate the Eric Carle book, "Little Cloud." We went outside twice during the week to look at the clouds and try to figure out what shapes we saw in the clouds. While inside the children had the opportunity to take cotton balls and pull on them to turn them into shapes. These were then glued onto paper to turn it into a cloud shape picture! Some of the children were thrilled to name the shapes of the "clouds" they made by pushing paint around on the inside of a folded piece of paper. These can be found on display with our other Eric Carle inspired art. One of the favorite projects of the week was our shaving cream play! The children had the chance to play with shaving cream and create different "cloud shapes" on the table.

Listening in:

The children really enjoyed showing off what they knew about the growth of seeds. They were thrilled to tell me that seeds need water, sun and soil to grow!

Morah Amanda: We are going to be scientists and we are going to predict. What does it mean to predict?

Different children: predict

Morah Amanda: We are going to predict. We are going to guess what might happen to these. If we put three sunflower seeds onto the paper towel when it is wet and then put the paper towel into the bag and hang it in the window, in the sun, what might start to happen?

Noah: A Sunflower!

Morah Amanda: Do you think that a sunflower will just pop out?

Avery: No.

Morah Amanda: Do you remember in the story what was the first thing that happened to the seeds?

Miriam and Avery: The roots.

Morah Amanda: The roots! And I am hoping we will be able to see some roots grow from these. Just by sitting in a baggy in the window; getting some water from the paper towel. What do plants need to grow?

Miriam: Sun.

Morah Amanda: Sun; and...

Miriam: Water!

Morah Amanda: And?

Avery: Soil.

Miriam: Garbage.

Morah Amanda: Soil! No garbage Miriam.

Class laughs

Noah: Garbage.

Morah Amanda: No garbage.

Class laughs again.

Looking Ahead:

Next week, Eric Carle, will be leading us to our two week discussion of bugs. We will be focusing on "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," "The Very Clumsy Click Beetle," and "The Very Busy Spider." We will be making spider webs, having our own click beetle races and making a special caterpillar snack as well as many other activities.

"Planting" our sunflower seeds