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.

Garden Creations

Our inquiry into Flowers began back in December when I brought in a mystery item. The bulb came in a glass jar and the students immediately began to ask questions about what it was.

Mystery Item!

As time went on, the students noticed that this mystery thing began to grow roots from the bottom down into the vase.


Several students drew pictures of what they saw and we began to read books about plants and flowers.


After the holiday break, we came into the classroom with a wonderful surprise awaiting us. Our bulb had sprouted flowers for us to see and smell! Oh what a wonderous addition to our classroom.

Draw pictures of what we see.

Watercolour paintings of "Looking Closely"

We have continued to watch and wonder throughout the various phases of our bulb's life cycle; documenting our learning along the way.

In March one of our kiddos decided she wanted to see what was inside the dead flower heads of our plant. So she began rubbing the dead flowers between her fingers and was surprised to find seeds coming out.

Opening up the dead flowers to see what's inside.

We soon began wondering about different kinds of plants and I brought in some other bulbs and rhizomes for the kiddos to look at and plant.

Reading Non-fiction books to learn about plants.

Looking Closely at different plants and their roots/bulbs/rhizomes

We spent a day moving our original bulb from its glass vase into a pot. We also planted several other plants we were beginning to accumulate.

Planting our bulb in soil to see what happens next.

Checking out the inside of a bulb.

Planting an orange seed from our snack.

Planting more bulbs.

Will they be the same type of flower?

As we continued to document our learning, a question came up about how some of the plants grow leaves fast than others. This lead into measuring the heights of the leaves. I set out several different manipulates for measuring. The kiddos immediately grabbed the rulers and looked at the heights. This lead to a quick mini lesson on how to put the "0" of the ruler at the base of what we want to measure. The kiddos also had experiences working with cuisenaire rods to measure the various plant heights.

Measuring with a ruler.

Learning to measure starting at the "0"

Measuring with cuisenaire rods.

We have now moved our Flower Inquiry into our sandbox in order to make room for watercolour paintings of what we would like a flower garden to look like.

New location for our plants!

Create a garden and paint it!

Stay tune for the next blog post on all the beautiful garden spaces are kiddos are creating.
Perhaps our next step will be to help clean up and plant in our own Eco Garden outside.

Balance and blocks

Last week we put out a challenge to our students to see what they can create with the Idea of Balance.
Several students tried to create towers and robots that went high up. Others created balance in a symmetrical way.

Working hard to make all the parts balance.

Completed Robot.

Another Robot.

Beginning with balance.

Making it balanced is not all that easy.

A Chinese Tea House.

Very balanced.

A Castle.

Working to build up high.

Height and symmetry.

All of our students were able to orally tell what their structure represents. Next week we will print off the pictures and have the students write about what they created to add to our documentation wall. To all our parents: if you have a chance - please come by next week to see our work.

Math Ideas for Teachers

Check out the blog post by Deanna Jump to get some new ideas for teaching Math in Kindergarten.

http://mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.ca