Flower Inquiry

Looking Closely at plants and flowers.

As the weeks are passing, many of our kiddos are quite intrigued by the flowers popping up all over the school grounds. We have flowers sprouting in our inquiry bin, lots of beautiful flowers are coming out at the front of the school, and we even received a special flower gift from the administration with the challenge to find it a spot outside.

Flower Inquiry Bin

The flower Admin gave us.

We have been looking at the parts of a flower, by experimentation, by researching in non-fiction books, and looking on the internet.

Looking Closely at the parts of a flower.

Inside the classroom, we have been busy planting flower bulbs and seeds to see how they will grow. We have looked closely at what the different seeds look like, and are making predictions about what will grow first.

Planting flower seeds in eggshells.

CY brought these in. I wonder what will happen?

Adding water after planting the seeds.

Long and skinny seeds with yellow tops.

Small green seeds.

Why did the water sink to the bottom?

We found these outside.

While looking at flowers outside, we have come across several cool insects and animals worth stopping to study them. While out at the public parkland we came across many dead bees. This lead to a few questions:

Why are they all here in one spot?
How did they died?
Did they sting someone first?

We collected a few and brought them back to the classroom for the kiddos to look closely at and investigate. We have watched a few videos about how bumble bees lay their eggs. In journals we are seeing some Ninja Bees - this has been a good boost to our imagination.

Some of the children are showing their knowledge of flowers through various languages of art. They have created bead flowers, window cling flowers, and paintings of flowers.

Looking at fresh flowers to inspire us.

Watercolour garden for the teachers

Writing about a seed.

Our class has taken on the task of cleaning up one area of our Eco Garden. It is quite a mess as it hasn't been tended to consistently for a couple of years. Our Lunch Supervisor did a good clean up in the fall, but the weeds are beginning to sprout again. I have purchased 5 pairs of gloves for the kiddos, so they are learning patience in order to wait their turn to have a lunch period in the garden. Hopefully it will be cleaned up enough to plant the flower, admin gave us, in the next 2 weeks. We also have some more bulbs growing inside that need to be transferred to the garden outside. It will be fun to watch these continue to flower year after year.

While cleaning up the garden, we have come across several snails.

Looking at snails through a glass jar.

The kiddos are extremely curious about these tiny creatures. We have built them a small habitat in the classroom to observe and watch them. Over the next week or so, I will be teaching the kiddos that we can observe and document them for a while but they will have to go back into their natural habitat once we are finished.

We are adding to our flower inquiry board almost every day.

I look forward to seeing where these snails will take us.