Pre-K Explores the World of Plants

Pre-K has started a new unit all about plants. Last week we planted a paperwhite bulb and made predictions about how many cubes high it will grow.

 

We also sorted seeds with tweezers!  Many of us wondered what type of plant the seed would grow into.

Everyone had fun "planting a garden"! First is the stem and leaf, next comes the flower and last the pollen. 

 We discovered the gardens can be connected together to make one BIG garden.

 

We made observations about another type of bulb: an amaryllis.  It is a bigger bulb than the paperwhite.  Some of the pollen fell onto the petals of the flower!

 

This week was the first time pre-k got to see the roly polies.  The little critters have finally gotten big enough to handle!
 

Kindergarten Investigates Seeds.

Kindergarteners have been investigating whether seeds need water to grow. We are very excited for our first experiment!  We put one garlic clove in a cup with about a half an inch of water in it.  Then the classes recorded what it looked like. 

We had to wait until the next science class to see if anything happened.  We made some predictions about what we might see.  "It may change color."  "It may change shape." "It will be bigger." "It's going to be the same." Boy were we surprised that the garlic grew roots and a stem! Now to record the changes!

Lastly, in an experiment, we need to see if a garlic bulb would grow without water.  There were mixed ideas about this, but the majority of the students said no, the seed wouldn't grow.

They were right!  The garlic bulb without water didn't grow at all.

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?

Pre-K Explores Seeds!

Pre-K was curious about seeds.  Children will find something outside on their way to school and wonder what it is.  Many times it's a seed - usually from a honey locust or sycamore tree!  So we decided to investigate!

The seeds are all different colors.

The small seeds go through the screen.

I can push the seeds through.

So many seeds.

Wow!  Look how big they are!

All the different seeds we looked at.  Most of them are beans.

Everyone chose one type of seed that they wanted to plant! We all know that seeds need soil, water and sun (or in our case a grow light) to start growing!

After planting we need to water!

The stick has our name on it so we know which plant is ours!

 

How long will it take to grow?

Depending on the seed size, we plant about 3 or 4 seeds.

Now we wait!

A week later....look at how much our plants grew!!

Every day we need to water our plants!