{In the Garden & Birds}

The last several weeks we have been learning a LOT.We decided our "Flowers and Showers" theme would be a perfect week to kick off our Garden PBL. We started off by brainstorming what we wanted to grow. We had a lot of great ideas!

 

Our next step was to research each item we thought of and see if it grew on a tree, bush, vine, as a plant or was a root. We knew we couldn't grow it if it was on a tree or bush because it would take too long. The peas looked up each item and made a chart of how it grows.

Finally, we made a list of what was practical (could grow in a month or so) and what wasn't practical (took a year or longer to grow). During circle time we talked about each one and came down to a good list of things we could plant.

One of our awesome dads, Coach Stralow made us a new raised garden box to start our garden! Now that we knew what we were going to plant, we could get started!

 

We got our seeds ready and took turns planting different parts of the garden. Pre-K 2 even helped out! We used teamwork to plant, fill up the watering can and give our little seeds their first drinks of water.

 Afterwards, we began making a seed collection. Some of the peas brought seeds from home or fruit that we could take the seeds right out of!

We taped down the seeds and carefully labeled them.

Afterwards, we put the seeds out with magnifying glasses so we could study them.

We also loaded up the sensory bin with flowers since we were talking about gardens.

Next, we did journals. We do journals every Wednesday and I love that part of our week. Everyone takes their journals and finds a comfy spot to work. Sometimes they work together and sometimes they work alone, but they always spend a good amount of time illustrating their page for the week.

Here's a few of the finished products!

And to conclude our garden PBL, here's a before and after in just two weeks! That rain really jump starting our little seeds. We are documenting our growth.

We love to read. We read a LOT.

 

 So it was while reading that we read this book about a flower:

 

That we found this page in the book with birds:

 

And a new obsession began! :) They loved this page and wanted to look at it over and over and know the different types of birds. So we thought about what we know about birds and listed all the types of birds we could think of.

I went to the library and checked out almost 20 bird books that we read over the last week, but here are a few of our favorites:

We took the flowers out of the sensory bin and added eggs, worms, birds and a basket with twine and yarn to practice nest weaving. (Sneaky fine motor fun!)

The peas wanted to do bird art, so we found some paper and  drew our own bird interpretations. Then they water colored them.

Angela and I cut their birds out and then they made nests and eggs and glued them all back down on blue paper. The results were awesome! I love the uniqueness of each bird.

 

We also watched this time lapse of baby birds. It is a little longer, but so worth it. We call these guys the crybabies.

Next, we became entranced by this live eagle cam of two bald eagles and their babies. They have triplets! Here's the parents with the eggs. If you go to the live feed, you'll see the eaglets are pretty big now!

All that eagle watching led us into a big discussion about nests. We found this video of a time lapse nest being built and they loved it!

And you won't believe it, but we found something RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR CLASSROOM!!!

 

What could it be?

It was a BROKEN EGG!!

The peas quickly investigated and found a nest in the tree outside our class. There is a mourning dove sitting on a nest.

 

Can you see her head?

To wrap up the week, we read this fantastic book:

After all that talk of nests, the peas begged to make their own nests. So we divided up into two groups and got to work!

We gathered found materials and tried our best at nest building.

Here's our finished products! We decided they were most like an eagle nest since eagles primarily use sticks to build their nests.

I love the curiosity and awe that the peas have for new information. They are always learning. We plan to find some bird feeders to hang up outside our room so we can do more bird watching. So far we've seen sparrows, a blue jay, a cardinal, a crow and a mourning dove. Tell us if you see any cool birds by your home!

{How Does Your Garden Grow?} Part 2

So last week the rest of the ECDC moved onto learning about fish and oceans and we did some, too. But we asked Ms. Molly if we could also continue our garden study since the peas were showing such a strong interest in it, and she agreed! I knew it was something we had to continue to pursue when I saw signs like this pea drawing pictures of seeds and writing about it on his own during free time. 

I snapped a picture of him working in the morning during free centers and was elated to find him drawing pictures of the things we had been discussing. They are making so many great connections! Not to mention it makes my heart soar when they practice spelling on their own! Their confidence is growing and I love it! Here's what I found when I peeked into his journal:

The peas had been wanting to examine the seeds the week before, so I found this little container and we made it into a seed collection. We put a few seeds from each pack that we had in the container to look at and then we brought some seeds from home to add as well. 

They quickly figured out that the very tiny seeds got lost easily, so they decided to make seed cards for the little seeds. I got out the seed packets so they could look at how to spell the names of the plants, but for some they just sounded them out.





They used sentence strips and glued on the larger seeds and used tape for the very tiny seeds.

We decided to do a little artwork by painting what would become flower petals!

Small paper bowels were the center of the flowers.

They turned out pretty stinkin cute!

We had a morning message asking what kind of flowers they liked best and they drew them and then wrote the name.

I found this cute idea on Pinterest and added it to math for a little sequencing fun. They "planted a pattern!"



I love the uniqueness of the scarecrows!

I also brought something really fascinating to school....worms! The boys were ALL about it!

We learned how important these decomposers are to the soil and how they help keep the soil healthy and help plants grow.

We made our worms a worm farm so that we could watch them dig tunnels in a glass fishbowl.



After dropping them on top they quickly burrowed under the soil.

One pea made them a label so we would know what it was!

Afterwards, we ate some worms, but they were of the gummy variety!

After all our worm work, everyone drew and painted worms. I cut them out and then they added them to a big brown piece of paper. They shared their observations about worms and I typed those up so we could add them, too.

They made some great observations. I loved the drawings. Some worms were very fat and some were very thin.

You can check out our worm observations inside the door of our classroom.

In the middle of the week it rained pretty hard and we had been reading about how rainwater is the best water for plants. Ms. Angela ran outside and caught us some rainwater to save for later!

One of my favorite projects has been our compost bin. The peas love it, too! Both classes have consistently been bringing things to add to the compost and we have been watering it and turning it before we cover it back up. Since ours is relatively small and we've been adding an even amount of green and brown waste (veggie peelings & dead leaves, etc.) our materials are breaking down pretty quickly. You can see below the difference between one week to the next how nice and dark it's getting. You can get good soil anywhere from 4 weeks to a year after you start a pile, it just depends on what you put in it. If you are interested in starting one at home, this site has some good information. Hopefully we will have dark rich soil by the end of school!

 

 There was also a BIG mystery last week about our garden. Something dug up part of the garden and ate some of our radishes and morning glory seedlings. One morning when I got to school this is what was happening:

These peas took it upon themselves to brainstorm what animal could possibly be getting into our garden! They were each writing a list. Talk about problem solvers! Look at their thinking faces:

Here's just one of the lists below. It says, "skunk, rabbit, armadillo, fox, mole". They were very realistic about what animals could be getting to the garden. One of the peas even came up with some criteria: They have to live in Texas, be able to dig, like to eat plants or bugs and come out at night. 

They got out the ipads and looked up the animals on their lists to see who was the most likely culprit.

I just had to add this picture because she was pretty grossed out by what armadillos look like up close! But armadillos were on her short list of culprits!

Later, we repaired the damage and replanted the seeds that were eaten.



We have quite a few sprouts..our peas, tomatoes, squash and green beans have all sprouted!

The peas are very happy gardeners. I love watching their faces as they rush outside to check the garden everyday. Our garden is growing and so are we!

Have a great week!