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!

New Unit: Plants in Our Midst

 Transdisciplinary Theme: How We Share The Planet

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

Lines Of Inquiry:

The features of plants in our local areas

How animals/people use plants

The needs of plants in our local area

Pulling weeds
In the formative week Deb and I will gather the children's prior knowledge on plants and questions they have that will lead our inquiry. It would seem the Fire Group knows quite a lot! After pulling weeds from the planter box and examining them with magnifying glasses and drawing a plant with leaves and roots the children had this to say . . .

Careful observations

Sophie

We eat plants. Sticks come from trees. When you pick a leaf you can't stick it back on. Flowers fall off of trees. Plants grow.

Esme

When you pick a flower it doesn't grow anymore and sometime while you're walking back to your house it dies. There are prickly plants in every forest of the world, it's true! Coyotes, wolves, and bears live in the forest. 

Rielle

Roots grow under the ground. You can find prickly plants in our forest, but not all forests. Leaves fall from trees. Some plants stop growing. Parsley is a plant you can eat.

Tyreese

Sticks fall of off trees. When the wind blows leaves fall.

Oliver

When you touch a prickly plant it hurts. People get paper from trees.

Rylan

Plants need sun, water and food. Trees have leaves. Some trees are called Maple and that's where syrup comes from. Bears live in the forest. 

Plant Illustration

The lively discussion that followed Oliver's statement "When you touch a prickly plant it hurts" helped us formulate our first question "Are prickly plants found in forests around the world?"

I read a story called "I Eat Leaves" that features animals that eat leaves, at the end the children responded to the question "Do you eat leaves?" Esme and Tyreese thought no, everyone else thought yes. After discussing the kinds of leaves people eat the children concluded "There are some leaves we eat and some leaves we don't eat" and they've made plans to create a collection of each category of leaves. It will also be a good opportunity to taste leaves we can eat!

More Plant Illustration