Kindergarten Learns about Trees!

Kindergarten has been exploring the different parts of a tree and how those parts help the tree survive and thrive!

Leaves, seeds and a section of trunk! 

Looking very closely at the leaves.  They help keep our air clean!

There are lines on this tree stump.

This seed is spiky! 

The classes were fascinated with the prickly seeds they found.  They wanted to know why they were so spiky.  After some brainstorming, they came to the conclusion that the spikes would make the birds or animals drop the seed instead of eating it.  Then the seed could grow into a new plant!

So many different types of seeds and bark!

Birch bark.

The magnifying glass makes the seed much bigger.

The biggest pinecone ever!

Counting the rings on the "tree cookie". 
The number of rings tells how old the tree is! 

Some bark is smooth and some bark is rough. 
The bark protects the tree.

Making our own trunk sections.

How old will we make our tree?

Kindergarten and the Flower Experiment!

Kindergarten has looked at all the parts of the tree and know how each part helps the tree to survive.  We were curious to know if the water really does go from the roots of the plant all the way up to the top!

We decided to put food coloring in a jar of water with a daisy in it and see what the flower looked like the next science class.

We looked closely at the flower before we drew it.

One class voted for red water.

Everyone drew the flower in the vase as it looked -
the water was very dark.

The bottom of the stem started to change color right away.

One class decided to split the stem and put one half in plain
water and the other half in blue water.

We made predictions about what we thought the flower would look like the next science class: the petals will be blue (or red or rainbow depending on the food coloring used), the stem will be the color of the water, the flower will grow, the water is going to disappear.

One week later...the flower petals turned blue!

The flower in the water with the red food
coloring didn't turn very red.  It was pink.

The underside of the petals have red lines on them.

The flower is so droopy!

This flower was a surprise!  The class put in red, blue, green
and yellow food coloring into the water.  The petals show all the
colors but in different locations on the petals!

Another droopy flower, but the side of the flower with the stem
 in plain water remained white, while the side of the flower with the
 stem in the blue water turned blue!

Kindergarten Goes Outside!

We have been learning how the different parts of the tree helps it grow and survive!  Now it's time to go to Lorianne's Garden in the Pre-K school yard and look closely at a lovely cherry tree.  What critters will we find living on the tree? What do they leaves look like?  What will it look like the next time we go out and visit the tree?

When we looked closely at the tree, we found ants!

Anything on the sign?

What are those bumps on the bark?

Last week, most of the leaves were green!

I found evidence of something eating the leaf!

The bark is smooth and rough!

Are there worms at the roots?

An ant!

Looking for critters!

A baby millipede.

Worms!

Something ate this leaf!

The bark is so rough and bumpy.

A soft, smooth, yellow fall leaf!

The leaves have yellow and orange in them now and are starting to fall off the tree!

Kindergarten and Tree Cookies!

We have been looking at sections of tree trunks (strangely named tree cookies)! We learned that the bark protects the tree, like our skin protects us, and the rings tell us not only how old a tree is, but if the tree grew a lot that year!

This birch tree log has moss growing on it.

The bark is smooth compared to the tree cookies.

This has so many rings!

The rings are close together.

This trunk is smaller.