A visit to Southland's Nursery

Community Connection: a field trip to the local greenhouses as Southland's Nursery

It was a wet and rainy day but the children were eager to take a trip on the bus and visit a local greenhouse. After researching images of greenhouses the children discovered that the houses are not green but the plants inside of them are!

The people at Southland's Nursery were very welcoming and the children were free to look around the buildings and see the many beautiful flowers and plants growing. As a gift we were given a small seedling starter kit with packages of seeds for tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and flowers! The children graciously said thank you and look forward to growing our own food "just like they did in the old days"

A display gave the children an opportunity to see many things that were used in people's houses long ago!

Do plants grow in winter? greenhouses

Teacher Question: How have ideas and inventions changed our lives?

The child's question "Was there winter in the olden days?" and the children's interest in food preservation has led an inquiry into why food was preserved for winter in the old days. While making strawberry jam the children expressed knowledge that strawberries grow in the summer, so then, how did we get these strawberries for our jam? Some of the children thought that maybe strawberries can grow in the winter.

This questions "Can plants grow in the winter?" is the basis of today's experiment.

The children have soaked some pea seeds and placed them in baggies - one for outside and one for inside - and have predicted whether they think they will grow or not. It was very interesting to hear the children's thinking as they made their predictions:

• Plants grow outside so the outside seeds will grow, not the inside seeds
• Plants won't grow in the cold so the inside seeds will grow, not the outside ones

We will check the seeds next week and see what's happened!

examining the seeds

Making our predictions

Checking the temperature outside

Making food like they did long ago

Teacher Question: How have inventions changed our lives?

Anticipation built this past week as the children patiently waited for the apple slices to dry! Recalling the process helped the children remember the work involved and everyone was eager to try. Chloe had an opportunity to think about being open minded as she didn't want to try any. I think watching the positive responses from the others as they ate their dried apple slice helped her to re-think her decision and she tried one and liked it! Later, Adyson, Chloe, and Julia practised speaking in front of a group when they explained the process before offering everyone a try.

To conclude our study of how food was preserved for winter in the old days we made strawberry jam. We reviewed the seasons and the children knowledgable in that they knew strawberry's grew in the summer and that if we kept a strawberry for a long time it rots. How did I get strawberry's in the winter then? A video of a greenhouse helped illustrate how we can recreate growing conditions. Some of the children were sceptical and thought we could grow strawberry's in the winter. This will lend itself to growing experiments next week and an opportunity to be inquirers! The children rolled up their sleeves with an understanding that to make strawberry jam would require a lot of work! What they lacked this week tho was patience! The afternoon seemed so far off before they could taste the jam!

Comparing games from today and long ago

Line of Inquiry:  There are similarities and differences between past and present

Today we explored the children's ideas of of what they like to play and compared it to the ideas that children played long ago. Some of the children's play ideas are the same as what children played long ago and some ideas could not have been played long ago. Why not?

• Watch T.V. - Rocco, Chloe, Sarah, YuHa, Natalya, Adyson
• Computer games - YuHa, Adyson, Chloe, Rocco
• Play trains - Rocco, Hao Hao
• Play Barbies (dolls) - Adyson, Natalya, Rocco, Chloe
• Ipad - Sarah, Natalya, Chloe

After hearing the story "Hunt the Thimble" by Fiona French the children wanted to try this play idea that the children in the story played long ago in Amsterdam. They learned that they had only a short time to hide it and that it was hard not to peek while they waited for it to be hidden. The children also played a board game, an activity many children played before TV's, computers, and Ipad were ever invented!

Finding the thimble

Counting to ten - don't peek!

Playing a board game

Drying apples like long ago

• Line of Inquiry: There are similarities and differences between past and present

In yesterdays inquiry I asked the children what they knew about "the olden days". Most weren't sure if they knew anything but Rocco offered "They had winter" We explored this idea further and created a seasons wheel and talked about what happens in each season. The wheel illustrated how the seasons repeat over and over again, as they have in the past and how they will continue on the future!

In our story Jamie helps his mother dry apple rings to be used later in the winter to make apple pies and we tried this to as a way to extend the children's interest in food preservation. The activity was rich in learning opportunities as they squealed with delight as seeds spilled from the apple slices and this prompted a math activity of counting apple seeds from each apple and predicting how many seeds are in the next apple! The children soon noticed that the apples were turning brown. I informed them that citric acid will prevent this and so we conducted an experiment in which we soaked one apple slice in lemon juice and one was left plain and the children observed what happened. The children are eager to eat their dried apples and an understanding in just how long "weeks and weeks" really is will be discovered!

Squeezing a lemon

Predicting and counting apple seeds

Dipping slices in lemon juice

Observing apple slices

Stringing apple slices to hang and dry

New Unit! Formative Week Making Butter

Where We Are In Place and Time

Central Idea: There are similarities and differences between the way people lived long ago and the way people live today

The children have begun thinking about what life was like in the "olden days" by sorting pictures of things from long ago and things from today. They've noticed how things have changed, such as the clothing children wear, what telephones looked like, and how we travel around. 

National Film Board of Canada has some wonderful stories of life in pioneer times. The children watched a story of James and all the foods he liked to eat. The children noticed that the mother used fire to cook and they seemed very interested in the pictures of how food was preserved  for the winter. 

One of the things James did was make butter  and the kids were keen to try. We watched how butter was made long ago with a churn compared to how it's made today with machines and they notices the difference in the amount of work it took. 

"We're going to do the work aren't we! We have to roll up our sleeves!" said Natalya. The children shook the jar with heavy cream for a long time as we discussed where the cream came from. After a lot of work the children were thrilled to see the butter coming from the jar. Everyone wanted to try some on bread, except for one person, which prompted us to graph the responses to the question "Do you like butter?