Our Wall Farm is Growing!

Did you know that in the cafeteria, we have a wall farm?  My 2nd and 3rd grade afterschool gardening class planted herbs, vegetables and even strawberries in October.  Two months later, they are looking great!  We actually harvested some of the lettuce for school lunches last week!

Parsley.

Basil.

Strawberry plants.

Romaine and green lettuce.

Dwarf peas.

Lettuce from our wall farm for lunch!

Pre-K Balances!

Pre-K explored a new scientific tool....balance scales.  

Which side is heavier?

Is it balanced?

Whoa! This side is heavier!

I can balance....look.

This side is lighter...it doesn't have as much in it.

It's even! 

It's balanced!

Exploring River Rocks!

Second grade has been busy learning about properties and sizes of rocks.  They sorted river rocks by color, size, texture, luster and shape.

Sorting by color.

Sorting by color can be hard because each rock can have
so many colors in it!

We put the river rocks in water to see if it changed the way we
would sort our rocks.

Looking at a river rocks mixture.

So many different sizes and colors!

The rock mixture was harder to sort by hand, so we used three different sized mesh screens to help!

The medium sized rocks stay on the medium screen.

The large rocks stay on the large screen.

Four different sized rocks...all sorted!

Trying all three screens together.  As long as they
are stacked small, medium and large,
they still sort the rocks!

Writing down observations.

Some of the bigger rocks can slide through, depending on the
shape of the rock.

Rock get their name from what they are made of and by what size they are.
The river rock mixture was made up of pebbles, gravel and sand.

3rd Annual PS58 Cardboard Challenge on Sunday!

Come to the gymnasium this Sunday from 11am to 2pm and be a part of the Imagination Foundation's 6th Annual Global Cardboard Challenge - a worldwide celebration of child creativity inspired by the short film "Caine's Arcade". To learn more about Caine's Arcade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U 

Hope to see you Sunday!

Kindergarteners Investigate How Seeds Grow!

Kindergarten has explored what animals need to survive - food, water, air and a place to live.  Now we are investigating the needs of plants with two growing experiments.

The first is discovering if plants really need water to grow.  Each kindergartener put a garlic clove in a cup. Half the garlic cloves received water and the other half did not.  Next, they recorded their observations.

We had some predictions. The garlic with no water will get smaller.

What will happen?

A week later this is what we discovered...plants do need water to grow!

The garlic with no water didn't grow and has brown spots!

Look at the roots!

The stem is light green.

The garlic in water is so big!

We drew our observations.

Our second experiment is to investigate whether seeds need light to grow! 

We made signs with our name on it so we would
know which plant was ours.

Each person in the group planted 3 radish seeds.

Now to water the seeds!

Now that our seeds are planted, it's time to see if a plant really needs light to grow.  We placed half the plants in the grow lab and placed the other half of the plants in a covered box that receives no light. 

What will they look like next science class?

1st Graders Explore the World of Insects!

1st graders are watching their mealworms grow! They also have been observing other "critters" and seeing how they are the same and how they are different to our mealworms.

The bess beetle is the same as our mealworm because they both have
lines on their bodies and 6 legs, but they are different colors and different sizes.

The crickets have antenna like the mealworm, but mealworms
don't jump like the cricket!

The millipede is thin like the mealworm, but it has way more legs than
a mealworm!

The silkworms and mealworms have holes on the
side of their body where they breathe,
but they are a different color than the mealworm.

 We have discovered big changes happening to our mealworms these days! Our mealworms are getting bigger!

This mealworm is shedding it's skin!
Once the skin hardens, the color will be brown.

 The mealworms are also changing! Many of them are now in the pupa stage...they are teenagers.  Everyone is very excited to discover what the adult will look like.  Some thoughts are butterflies, fireflies and bigger mealworms!

The pupa on the bottom is getting ready to
become an adult. One can see the legs
starting to come out of the pupa.

What will it be?

It's a darkling beetle!

They have wings, but only fly if they get scared.

They move so fast!

It is said that when a beetle is upside down, you can tell if it's male or
female.  The female's underside is rounded, while the male's is a bit pointed.