Plants: Formative Week

Our new unit: How We Share The Planet: Plants In Our Midst

Central Idea: Plants play a unique role in our lives and the lives of animals

Todays activity assessed the children's prior knowledge of living and non living things. The whole group worked together to create a Venn Diagram comparing a rock and a plant and then everyone broke up into their groups to sort a tray of things.

Some of the criteria the children used in deciding:

• does it breathe?
• does it grow?
• does it need food and water?
• does it reproduce?
• does it move?
• does it take up space?

The the children drew a thing and placed it on the living and non living chart.

Some questions the children asked:
French fries help people grow so is it a living thing?
Do all living things have faces?
Do lollipops breathe? (this question was inspired by the Lollipop Tree song the children are learning) (see Anamaria's blogs)

Summative Week

Summative Week

The summative activity showcases the children's learning and understanding of the unit after 7 weeks of inquiry! For this unit, the children brainstormed all the jobs in the community they know. This list is compared to the same list made at the beginning of the unit to check for growth in understanding.

After the chart is made the children vote on a job they will act out in a tableaux that they will present for the other children.

Through discussion the children shared their knowledge about dentists, answering the following questions:
what is the dentists role?
what tools or equipment does a dentist use?
how does a dentist help the community?
what would happen if there were no dentists?

The children are excited to continue this activity with Debbie the rest of this week as they dramatize being dentists and patients and making props for their performance!

Jobs: Gardeners

Line of Inquiry: The jobs people do in our community develops it's growth

The children are knowledgeable about what gardens need to grow, just like the gardeners and landscapers that work in our community. The children drew pictures for an information poster to share their knowledge and they will apply their knowledge as we take responsibility for 'landscaping' our planter boxes and creating a beautiful garden.

Today's first step is to weed and pull out all the winter dead growth.

The children shared stories of how many of their parents do the gardening work at home and some parents hire someone to come and cut their grass.

Forest Community: worm compost

Thinking about other types of communities

After a very successful worm hunt in the forest the children brought back their findings in preparation for our project - building a worm compost.

A teacher led discussion on what worms do and how they help us spurred on the children's thinking and discussion. Worms are a part of the forests community and the work they do is very important; eating decomposing material and turning it into rich compost which helps new plants grow. Many gardeners and landscapers use worm compost to grow beautiful gardens.

the first layer is shredded paper

drawing the diagram

We watched a Youtube video of a boy giving instructions on how to build a worm compost. The children followed the direction and drew a diagram of the steps they took. It so happened that the Earth group is learning about where food comes from and was preparing a salad and had food scraps for our compost! At lunch the Wind Group invited all the children to add today's lunch scraps to the bucket.

Now for the worms to do their work! Turning the bucket of fruit and vegetable scraps into rich compost for our planter boxes outside! Over the coming weeks we will check the worms progress and record our observations of what is happening inside the bucket!

adding worms to the compost bucket

Job: Science Researchers

 Children's Question: What job do my parents do?

Today the children wore "Caring Science Researcher" labels on their shirts as we researched the answers to their questions about worms.

"Do worms have heads?" Careful observation of the worms movements helped the children identify which end is their heads, where their mouths are located, and which end is their anus. The children referred to a diagram of a worm to confirm their findings and in the process the second question was answered "Do worms poop?" Yes!

"Where do baby worms come from?" The children used a worm life cycle chart to identify the egg, the baby worm, and the adult worm. The children were amazed to learn that there are no boy worms or girl worms; worms are both girls and boys in the same body! We observed the worms and identified the clitellum, where the eggs come from.

"Why don't worms have legs?" "Are they stretchy, do they change size?" The children observed the worms moving and noticed how their bodies stretched from short to long as they moved. Everyone wanted a chance to move like a worm and used words like "slithering" and "sliding" to describe their movements. An art activity extended this idea as they dragged pieces of yarn (worms) through glue to slither and slide on their paper (the dirt).

Moving like worms

Job: Science Researchers

Line of Inquiry: The jobs people do in our community helps support its development

Child's Question: What job does my parent do?

Last week on our walk to the bank two significant things happened: we saw a worm on the sidewalk and we smelled compost in the garden. The children reacted negatively to both things and questions came to mind: Why do we have worms? Who put compost on the garden and why? Who's job is it to do this?

Rocco's mom is a Science Researcher, the children will role play this job as we learn about the significance of worms and compost. What attributes do Science Researchers have? We will explore this further.

Today the children reflected on if they like worms or not and shared what they know about worms. Researchers ask questions and so the children asked questions about what they don't know about worms. Worms are living creatures and every living creature deserves to be treated with care and the children practiced handling the worms with care.

Treating a baby worm with care
The children practised being caring and curious researchers. Some of the children were eager to hold a worm and some took time before they felt comfortable holding a worm.

What we know about worms

Researchers form questions

Do you like worms?

A trip to the bank

Community Connections: a trip to the bank

It was a long walk but we made it to Vancity on Dunbar Street! We were greeted by Maryvonne, the bank manager and introduced to Breanne, a bank teller, who gave us a tour!

Meeting Breanne

We were all impressed by the tour and got to see many things. Breanne opened the safe where all the money is kept and showed us rows and rows of coins. Neil had a customer that wanted to withdraw $200 and he showed us the machine where the money comes out. Most of the children recognised the ATM machine, but it was so interesting to see what it looks like from behind!

Opening the safe

Neil shows us where the money comes out

Behind the ATM machine

Everyone got to push a button!

The children met the different people who work at the bank and learned that their job is to help people make big purchases, such as, buying a house, or a car, or replacing the roof.  I wanted to know what kind of attributes were important to work at the bank and Breanne told the children it's important to be a good listener so you can hear what the customers need, to be friendly and smile a lot, and to be patient because you have to help a lot of people! Simone said she would like to work at the bank when she grows up!

Lastly, the children all received special Vancity bags containing a juice box, raisins, a picture, a flashing light for bikes, a piggy bank and a brand new 2012 quarter! It was such a long walk we took the bus back. Thank you to Rocco's mom, Robin, for coming along and helping!