Friday, April 5, 2013

g is for garden and grow

Examining bugs and plants.  Excuse the bedhead.
 We are continuing with our living things block in preschool.  We started with an examination of our bugs (the ant farm and our caterpillars.)  The catepillars have become 10x the size they were.  It's fun to see the kids run down to see what the bugs have been up to overnight.  Each new ant tunnel or "plumped up" caterpillar is celebrated.

Next we examined the plants we have been growing and looked at their leaves, stems and roots.  We also looked at any discarded seed pods with magnifying glasses.  We read Usbourne's How Flowers Grow and a section out of our Berenstein Bears Science Book.  We looked at some pictures of plant life cycles.

 We did some prewriting worksheets and Red Fish did some handwriting pages.
 We talked about the letter "g" and finger painted some cutouts.  Our nursery rhyme of the week was Mary Mary Quite Contrary.
 Next we made bud vases with old bottles, tissue paper and modge podge.  The kids love modge podge.  We had to open some windows to avoid the fumes.
 We spent some time digging in the dirt and planting seeds in mason jars so we can watch the roots grow.  My grass seeds were a little old so hopefully they will be okay.  I wanted to do wheat grass but My wheat wouldn't sprout. 
 We did some counting games and puzzles that require putting the numbers 1-20 in order.  The kids did great.  New Fish and Buddy B recognize and understand the numbers 1-20 really well now.  It's so fun to see how much they have learned this year.  Their little minds amaze me.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

That surprises me about your wheat not sprouting. I'm curious, did you soak it overnight before planting? You have to soak it in water for at least 24 hours. We have sprouted wheat a few times and it has worked like a charm every time.

One Fish said...

Well since I don't bake and don't eat wheat, my only wheat was really old. I got it from my grandparents food storage when they were moving so I could use it in a sensory bin. So we soaked it for two days and it never sprouted. We will try it again with something fresher.

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