The Venus Flytrap!

Hello family and friends!

We've had an awesome week of exploring in the Aalva class this week! As you probably remember, at the beginning of the year the kids made a list of all the topics they wanted to learn about throughout the school year. I'm happy to announce that we were able to talk about the majority of those topics over the first half of school! Since it's a new year, we decided to make another list. The difference between the list from August and now is huge. The kids put more thought into this list and some ideas stemmed from topics we have already discussed. All that to say, we voted on a new topic on Friday of last week. The kids chose to learn more about Venus Flytraps! I was a little hesitant to study this topic because I didn't know much about them myself. If I've learned anything from teaching, it's been that I am capable of learning just as much as the kids do during an exploration!

To start off our week, we made our KWL chart. When we started the week, we only knew three facts about Venus Flytraps. We knew that they were plants, they ate bugs, and they had a trap to catch those bugs. We spent a lot of time reading nonfiction books this week. We explored these books through our partner picture walks (we have discovered that we learn SO much just from taking time to study pictures) and through read alouds. I knew the kids were really interested in Venus Flytraps when they sat eagerly paying attention to every word read from some of these nonfiction books! We also gathered facts from watching a short video. It was only about 2 minutes long but it allowed the kids to see a Venus Flytrap up close in action. All of these facts lead to more questions and we were able to answer most of them through our library books.

We also spent some time hands on with Venus Flytraps. It's hard to find the plant in stores right now as they are a seasonal plant but I was able to find 2 very small ones for our classroom. We spent some time measuring them as well as looking at their parts closely through magnifying glasses. Each trap has 6 hairs inside of it that are used as triggers for catching bugs. We weren't able to see these hairs with our naked eyes but once we pulled out the magnifying glasses, we were able to see them and explore the different parts of the plant. In learning about the different parts of these traps we made models of them with paper plates. The kids folded the plates in half and then added the spines and hairs. As we made them we talked about each part and why it's important to the plant. I hope the kids were able to tell you some cool facts from these models! We also spent some time this week trying to get the traps to close. The kids were able to use toothpicks to carefully rub against the hairs in hopes of causing the traps to close up. We were able to get 2 traps to close but that was it. After doing some reading we found out that these plants go dormant in the winter months so they may become inactive. As scientist, we concluded that this was probably the reason that the majority of the plants didn't have any reaction to our toothpicks.

Throughout our exploration, we also discovered that these plants live well in a terrarium. We were able to find a book that showed examples of terrariums and listed supplies as well as steps on how to make one. We got a round fish bowl and filled it with the different layers which included, gravel on the bottom, followed by a sand/soil mix, and then peat moss. After adding our layers we planted the flytraps and sprayed them with some distilled water. We learned that these plants don't get many nutrients from the soil and are very sensitive to tap water. They need distilled or rain water (which we plan to place a cup or bucket outside to catch some rain water for them in the future). We talked about the purpose of the gravel and the importance of not over watering to protect the roots from rotting. After the terrarium was set up, we placed it in the Science center to be explored throughout the year. We also read that during the winter months these plants do not need direct sunlight. We concluded that the plants would be fine in our Science center until the Spring when we can move them closer to the sunlight allowing them to become active again.

By the time we finished our exploration this week, we had learned a lot! Here are some facts that the kids wanted to share with you...

when a bug touches 2 hairs in the trap it causes the trap to snap shut
the plant gets nutrients from the bugs it catches (instead of the soil)
the plants produce nectar
the traps have 6 hairs inside of them
bugs are attracted to the nectar and the color of the traps
the plants can grow to 1 foot tall
the plants grow in the Carolinas
the traps reopen after 5-10 days of closing
the traps wither after 4-6 closings and then a new trap will grow

I also wanted to mention that we have added computer games to our classroom this week. I was told that the majority of you have already heard about this new addition at home! There is one based on reading skills and one based on math. These games focus on letter and word recognition, as well as number recognition, adding, and subtracting. We've set up a clipboard and timer at the computer so each child signs their name showing they've come to the computer center and then sets their timer for 10 minutes. So far it's going great! The kids are excited about it and have really been enjoying the games. I think this will be a wonderful addition to our classroom center time!

Approaches To Learning:

Demonstrate increasing ability to identify and take appropriate risks in order to learn and demonstrate new skills.
Show curiosity in an increasing variety of activities, tasks, and learning centers.
Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questioning and adding ideas.
Demonstrate delight or satisfaction when completing a task, solving a problem, or making a discovery.

Social & Emotional:

Follow classroom rules and procedures with reminders.
Use classroom materials responsibly, most of the time.
Manage transitions positively when told what to expect.
Develop strategies to express strong emotion with adult help.

Language & Literacy:

Respond to elements of colorful language in stories and poetry.
Retell one or two events from a story read aloud.
Begin to identify significant words from text read aloud.
Begin to ask questions about the causes of events they observe or hear about in books.
Begin asking "how and why" questions when looking at texts.
Make connections to prior knowledge, other texts, and the world in response to texts read aloud.
Contribute to small group or whole group class dictation activities.

Mathematics: