Plants: How Animals Use Plants

A Pear Tree by Meredith Hooper was a great provocation to 

discussing the many ways animals use plants.

                                                               The kids know that animals use plants:

• to eat
• for their home
• to hide, and they know this is called camouflage

Assessment: Everyone selected a photo of an animal and incorporated into a picture that shows how their animals is using
plants. Everyone included ideas of plants being used for food, shade and/or a place to live which shows they have a good understanding of this concept.

Plants: Will It Sprout?

The children were eager to show me the pots that contained the seeds they planted with Debbie last week. We opened one of the paper towels and saw that the seeds had begun to sprout! Very exciting! 

They know that plants need water, sun and air to grow but what do seeds need to sprout? 

Water was the obvious answer as the sprouting beans in the paper towel was wet with water.

Conducting Experiments

"If we put a seed in a paper towel that's wet with water it will sprout 

but what if we put a seed in a paper towel that is wet with . . ."

Looking for liquids!

Jayla finished the sentence by suggesting oil and started the first experiment. 

The children came up with 6 ideas to conduct experiments: oil, oil and water, vinegar, milk, juice and crushed chips. 

 

Predictions were made and crushed chips and vinegar are the only ones that received a unanimous negative vote. Francine felt the only experiment that would work was oil and water because, she says, seeds need water to sprout and that's the only experiment that has water. We shall see!

Plants: Child Led Inquiry and Question

Child Led Inquiry: Leaves We Eat and Leaves We Don't Eat Collection

Child's Question: Can we paint on leaves?

After several weeks of drying in the Leaf Press the leaves were ready to organize in a collection!  I wrote the titles on the papers: Leaves We Eat and Leaves We Don't Eat, Esme noticed the two titles were almost the same. Sophie looked for the word 'don't'. The children carefully placed the fragile leaves on the paper. "That means they break easily." offered Rielle.

Last week while examining leaves we eat Sophie made a statement that we used to formulate a question "Can you paint on leaves?" Most of the children thought you can't paint on leaves. 

Each of the children selected a paint colour to share with everyone and got to work! The results are beautiful! Once the leaves are dry they will be strung on a mobile and hung in the room for decoration.

Once finished I asked the same question "Can we paint on leaves?" and received a resounding YES!

Plants: Leaves We Do Eat!

During Formative Week while sharing their prior knowledge of plants the children independently made plans to create two collections: Leaves We Don't Eat and Leaves We Do Eat.

Last week they investigated leaves we don't eat and preserved some in a leaf press. Today we examined several leaves we can eat: iceberg lettuce, arugula, cabbage, spinach, celery leaf, bok choy, endive, romaine and the children compared them to leaves we don't eat while I recorded their thoughts on a Venn Diagram. Then they chose some to preserve in a second leaf press.

Everyone helped to make a salad and agreed on Italian dressing to toss it with. Seconds were had by all except Esme. She didn't like salad at the beginning of this activity and after trying a leaf decided she still doesn't like salad.

The children tried paint to illustrate leaves.

Plants: Observing Leaves

During the morning forest play the children collected samples of leaves. 

We spent some time examining the leaves while I recorded their observations. 

I wrote the words leaf and leaves on the poster and discussed the difference. This is similar to foot and feet. Esme reiterated "It's like when you have one hand, you say hand, and when you have two you says hands."

Is this a stem or a vein?

Here are my veins!

The children came up with lots of adjectives as they examined the leaves. We talked about the difference between stems, sticks and leaf veins. People have veins to carry blood in our body and leaves have veins to carry water and nutrients. "I can see my veins!"  Rielle and Grace noticed holes in some leaves and the children pondered what animals eat leaves. Everyone selected leaves to put into the leaf press. We'll preserve them for the "Leaves We Don't Eat" collection.

Animals eat leaves

Illustrating our observations

Why Do Trees and Plants Have Leaves?

(their beginning knowledge)

To keep them warm and safe from predators who want to eat them - Grace

To keep them nice and warm and protect them from enemies - Esme

Cherry trees need leaves to make cherries - Rylan

To protect the trees - Rielle

To bring water to the plant - Oliver

So snow has something to land on and can make them white - Sophie

During lunch Grace offered a connection "What if croissants were leaves and they grew on trees!"

Plants: A Walk to Buy Plants and Seeds

So many to choose from!

The Wind Group and the Fire Group went for a walk to IGA to buy seeds, seedlings, flowers and plants to help aid in our investigations. 

Tomato plants!

Choosing cut flowers

The children are very excited to transplant the tomato plants, lettuce and green pepper plant!

We need lots of seeds

We need flowers too!