News for May 13
We've had another busy week in Room 101 researching seeds, exploring Marbleworks and talking about memories and how to treat living things!
Our plant unit is in full swing. This week the children put bean seeds on damp paper in ziplock bags to get them to sprout. By the end of the week, the seeds had swollen up and sprouted a root! Last week we noted that the dry seeds each had a small, white oval and the students noticed that the root came out near the white oval.
We learned about seeds. We read the book,
Seeds, and we learned that every seed has the
power to become a new plant. Peas, coconuts and corn kernels are all seeds. The class also learned how seeds are distributed so the plants can live in new places (by wind, sticking to clothing and even in bird poop!) The children looked at seeds that you can eat and even had a chance to eat corn (as popcorn), pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. So when you are eating popcorn, you are really eating seeds!
Our student teacher worked with both the morning class and afternoon class to listen to them as they explored the Marbleworks activity. Ms. Griffin wrote about what she observed:
"My name is Fanny Griffin, and I'm finishing up my teaching degree at OISE/University of Toronto. I've been focusing on the role and importance of play-based learning in the kindergarten classroom, and this weeks' Marbleworks activity is a perfect example! We all explored how the tubes connected to create endless combinations of routes for the marbles. We used our problem-solving skills to figure out why some pieces didn't work the way we originally thought, and applied that new knowledge and understanding to create bigger, more amazing structures. Keep reading and you'll see some of our creations and our thinking behind the play!
We talked about building “structures” (Nina) and “experimenting” (Finn) to figure out how best to construct our creations. Some of us made predictions about what route we thought our marble would take; Natali, Anagha and Oliver actually changed their structures to make the marble go the way they wanted. There was a lot of cooperation going on, at one point Zachary exclaimed “I have a great idea guys! What if we put all the marble works together?”. There were also a lot of connections being made, with Nicholas exclaiming at one point “it's like snakes and ladders!”, and others were comparing the activity to water slides and roller coasters they'd been on.
This was such a fun activity: it made us think about what we were doing, and how we could use the tubes to create the structures in our imaginations."
The students drew and wrote a page for May for their monthly book. Next month each child will assemble the book and reflect on how their drawings and writing has changed since September.
We read two books this week that prompted a lot of discussion. Something From Nothing is a lovely book that has a repeating text which encourages children to read along. It also focuses on family and memories. Hey Little Ant promotes discussion about how to treat living things. As always, more information about the books we read together can be found at our sister blog at:
News for May 13
Our student teacher worked with both the morning class and afternoon class to listen to them as they explored the Marbleworks activity. Ms. Griffin wrote about what she observed:
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