Aalva Class 2014 - 2015: April 2015

Hello family and friends!

We've had a great week wrapping up our exploration of plants! This week we were able to see the results of our plant experiments. All of our lettuce and white flowers changed colors as they sat in color dyed water. Also, our sunflower seeds in the windows have started sprouting like crazy! We've been able to see the process from seed to plant as we watched small sprouts burst out of the seeds and roots begin to form. We also hung our bird feeders outside of our window to watch for birds. We haven't see any yet but we're still hopeful that some will come around!

To start off our week, we spent some time outside looking for signs of spring. As we've talked about plants, we've also been discussing the season of spring and what it looks like. We went on a nature scavenger hunt one morning. Everyone took a clipboard and pencil outside with them with a list of things to find. We spent time talking about the sights, sounds, and smells of spring time. As we found objects we checked them off of our list and put some findings in a baggy. We put all of our spring findings, along with magnifying glasses, in the science center to further explore them. At the end of the week we went back outside to do some nature drawings. We drew pictures of what we saw and heard. We noticed that we could hear a lot of spring sounds when we took time to listen! We labeled our spring drawings and have hung them up in the hallway if you'd like to check them out.

We also did some more planting this week! Our sunflower seeds in the windows were getting so big that we decided it would be best to take them down and actually plant them in cups. Each child has a cup with their name on it that they filled with soil and planted the sprouting seeds in. We have also been watering them throughout the week and making sure they get plenty of sunlight. Our hope is that these seeds will continue to grow and maybe some of you can transplant it into the ground and have a sunflower at home! We learned about the life cycle of a sunflower throughout our time watching them grow. We learned that once they die and dry up, more sunflower seeds will fall out of the flower. These new seeds will fall onto the ground and the process from seed to sunflower will start all over again.

In celebration of Earth Day, we also spent some time talking about recycling and it's importance. We talked about the different items that can be recycled as well as what they can be turned into. We learned that the more things we recycle, the less trash we add to the Earth and the healthier our Earth will become. We mentioned that there are a lot of different ways to recycle. One way of recycling is to make compost. We learned that we can recycle our fruit and vegetable skins as well as paper towels instead of just throwing them away. We learned all about the process of these materials breaking down (sometimes with the help of worms), turning into soil. As we talked about this we discussed the valuable nutrients that can come from our compost to help our plants grow. We have started saving our fruit and vegetable skins in a bucket and we'll be adding to it through the rest of the year. We're hoping to see some changes in our left overs as they begin to transform into nutrient rich soil for planting in the future!

As we've been studying plants this week, the kids have learned a lot of new words and concepts. Here are just a few new ideas that we've learned throughout our study...

dew drops: "They're rain drops that are on leaves but called dew drops." - John Walter
recycle: "Taking something old and turning it into something new!" - Max
compost: "Changing our trash into soil." - Asa
roots: "When you pour water it goes up the roots and through the plant." - Zeke
seeds: "You plant it, you watch it, and it grows bigger and bigger and bigger into a plant." - Kifer
bulb: "A brown round thing that grows a plant. It's pretty weird!" - Ashton
sprout: "When you plant the flower it starts as a little sprout." - David
bloom: "It's when a flower opens up." - Finn
soil: "It's the dirt with nutrients to help the flowers grow." - John Adam

Approaches to Learning:

Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
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.

Social & Emotional:

Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers, activities and materials.
Stands up for rights most of the time.
Responds respectfully to positive and negative feedback from adults most of the time.
Use classroom materials responsibly, most of the time.
Manage transitions positivity when told what to expect.

Language & Literacy:

Show interest in informational texts about familiar objects.
Make relevant comments or appropriate responses to story events or characters.
Begin to identify significant words from text read aloud.
Relate information from texts to personal experiences.
Incorporate information from informational texts into play activities.
Display curiosity and interest in learning new words.

Mathematics:

Investigate solutions to simple problems.
Classify objects in their environment by color, shapes, size or function.
Integrate mathematical ideas into personal representations.
Compare sets of no more than ten objects using the terms "more than" or "same as".
Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
Organize and represent data with real objects.

Collecting objects from our nature scavenger hunt...

We hung 4 bird feeders around our school...

Counting, planting, and caring for our seeds....

We are artist!...

Hello family and friends!

Welcome back to school! I hope everyone enjoyed their Spring Break and holiday. As fun as breaks are, it always seems nice to get back into routine. I'm finding it very hard to believe that we only have 30 more school days left in this year. We started a little number line countdown this week after getting asked how many days are left before summer. This year has flown by! We're looking forward to finishing the rest of the year off strong with tons of explorations and fun!

This week we've started talking about plants. This was something the kids brought up earlier in the school year but we felt that it'd be best to wait until the spring to dive into it. The kids have asked some pretty detailed questions about plants so we'll be spending a couple of weeks trying to answer those and gaining some more understanding of plant life. To start our week we read the book "Planting a Rainbow" by Lois Elhert. This book got us thinking about the different types of plants and what they provide for us. We discussed the different between seeds and bulbs and their importance. We also talked about the importance of labeling our plants so we could remember what we're growing as well as remember the best way to care for each plant, since they all require different types of care. As we talked about different types of plants we made a chart and labeled it: what plants have, what plants need, and what plants give to us.

In talking about the process of seeds to plants, we decided to do some planting of our own. Each child made a bag to grow sunflower seeds in. We wet some cotton balls and placed 4 seeds in each bag. We then hung them up in the windows for sunlight. After only 2 days our seeds have already started sprouting! We're so excited to see how they continue to grow. The kids go to check their bag each day. Once these seeds grow further, we're planning on planting them in pots for the kids to take home. Wouldn't it be awesome if everyone had a sunflower at home?! As we bagged these seeds we talked about the importance of rain and water for our seeds. We've noticed that our wet cotton balls have kept our bags moist so that our seeds are staying watered on their own. We also talked about the importance of sunlight as we discussed where to hang them in our classroom. We also planted some flowers in our room, near the window. We got into groups and each group planted a different flower in our pot. As we planted we discussed the importance of soil and the nutrients that it provides the plant. Somehow through all of our talks, one student asked about compost and it's nutrients. We've decided to make a little compost bin to see how this can help sustain our plants. We decided to leave our left over soil and tools in the science center for the kids to further explore. They've enjoyed making a mess and we've enjoyed watching them ask questions as they play!

As we discussed the different parts of plant, one of the big questions asked was about the importance of roots. We explained that roots help carry water and nutrients from the soil through the plant with veins, similar to our bodies. To demonstrate this in action, we did a little science experiment. We filled 3 vases with different colored water and placed a piece of lettuce in each one (lettuce is full of veins that show the travel of the water). We made predictions as to what would happen to each piece of lettuce. We then filled 3 cups with different colored water. Each child was given a white flower and asked to place it in any cup of their choice. We have set these out near a window to observe over the course of next week. We're so curious to see what happens to our white flowers over the weekend! :)

While discussing seeds we have also talked about the importance of seeds to other forms of wildlife. Since it's spring, we thought it'd be fun to get see some birds eating our seeds. Each child made their own bird feeder. We were actually able to find a recipe that did not require peanut butter (yay!). The kids mixed up all their ingredients and then pressed the mixture into cookie cutters to dry. They poked a hole in each one so we could string them. We made a few extra to keep at school and place in the tree outside of our classroom window so we can be bird watchers. I hope you can find a place to hang them at home and hopefully see some bird action as well!

To wrap up our week, we did some seed sorting. We took 6 different types of seeds and mixed them together. We then had the seed packages laid out for the kids to look at along with a sample of each seed taped to the package. As we sorted the seeds with tweezers, we talked about the different in their size and appearance. We also spent some time planting bulbs (since we had been talking about the difference of seeds and bulbs). Instead of using soil, we placed our bulbs in a cup. We first filled the cup with marbles and water. Next, we placed the bulb on top so that we can watch the roots shoot down into the marbles while our plant sprouts on the top. Our windows are full of plant life right now! Feel free to come in and check them out. I know the kids would be eager to tell you all about our experiments and planting!

Approaches to Learning:

Demonstrate growing ability to predict possible outcomes based on prior experiences and knowledge.
Reason about events, relationships, or problems.
Represent prior events and personal experiences in one or more ways.
Demonstrate increasing ability to use prior knowledge to understand new experiences.
Demonstrate an increasing ability to organize actions and materials in the learning environment.

Social & Emotional:

Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following directions.
Participate in group life of the class.
Display emerging social skills of trying to take turns and talk with others during play.
Demonstrate with adult guidance simple techniques to solve social problems.

Language & Literacy:

Carry out simple directions and directives.
Complete a thought or idea when communicating with others.
Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
Ask "how" and "why" questions about things in books and their environment.
Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.
Contribute to small group or whole class stories, rhymes or poems.
Combine some letters with pretend writing.

Mathematics:

Organize and represent data with real objects.
Understand and use positional words to describe the location of objects.
Sort and classify objects by one attribute.
Compare sets of no more than ten objects using the terms "more than" or "same as".
Show one-on-one correspondence through ten when counting real objects.
Begin to show an awareness of numbers in the environment.

Checking out our new plants...