Fuzzy the Caterpillar’s Search for Food

The children noticed that Fuzzy, our caterpillar, ate a lot of leaves and his home looked like it needed a little care. Matthew (from the Earth group) joined Wind group today and everyone was eager to share their knowledge and excitement about the caterpillar. We checked the leaves inside his home and found that all of them had little bites! 

Matthew "The caterpillar likes leaves. He is very wiggly and soft to the touch." 

Sofia " Oh look, fuzzy is climbing the new stick. He likes it."

Sofia "Fuzzy needs more leaves." 

We all took a short walk to the forest to collect more leaves and sticks. The children noticed that Fuzzy loves sticks. His colours are similar to the sticks and it seems like that is where he likes to spend his time. At first glance, it is very hard to spot him. 

Trystan "He's camouflaged."

From this statement, the children showed an understanding that some insects use plants to camouflage themselves from other animals.

Jason "Like birds. Birds like to eat bugs"

Plants in Our Midst - From Dot to Dot

 

For today’s art activity, we experimented with “pointillism”.

** Pointillism is the painting technique that uses a number of small coloured dots or points, that, when viewed from afar, form an image or picture. One famous painter who used pointillism in some of his paintings was Vincent Van Gogh. In order to find inspiration for today’s activity, we looked at some of Van Gogh’s work.

The children showed an understanding that this technique requires a lot of time and patience.

Roy “Can I take a break and come paint later?”

Bela “So many dots, but still so much room!”

Keira's art work

Roy's art work

Sofia's art work

Trystan's art work

Bela's art work

What do caterpillars eat?

While playing and exploring in the forest this morning, Molly found a caterpillar. As soon as Jason noticed the caterpillar in Molly's hand, he raised the following question:

"What do caterpillars eat?"

In order to help answer this inquiry, we brought Fuzzy (Molly chose his name), the caterpillar, back to school and placed him in a container.

Jason "What if he misses his friends from the forest?" 

Trystan "He needs some leaves so he can survive"

We made a chart and listed some food that the children predicted Fuzzy might eat. 

Maddi "Caterpillars eat leaves. They do. I saw holes in a leaf."

 

Bela "Leaves. Look, the caterpillar is trying to find some water."

Roy "Caterpillars drink water and eat something crunchy. Yellow leaves." 

Trystan "Leaves. Red leaves." 

Jason "Maybe they eat caterpillar food.... like yellow leaves." 

Sofia "Fresh, green leaves. And yellow, and brown...." 

After jotting all these ideas down, we decided to go to the forest to collect everything needed to make Fuzzy feel at home. 

Sofia "Let's bring some leaves. Maybe Fuzzy will eat them or use them as a place to rest."

Maddi "...and dirt, for when he wants to hide." 

Trystan "...and sticks, in case he wants to have fun and climb."

As a group, we reached an agreement: we will try to care for Fuzzy and make him feel like he is in his natural surroundings. Fuzzy will be released after he turns into a butterfly. This process will give the children a better understanding of the life cycle of a caterpillar.

Our Beans

Today we turned our attention to our beans. The seeds have sprouted and the children noticed that the roots are in need of more soil. 

Trystan "My bean stalk is so tall." 

Sofia "Look, this one is bending over." 

Roy "My beans grew so tall. Look! Leaves!" 

The children showed responsibility and care for their plants by transferring them into bigger pots and adding more soil.

Expressing our knowledge about plants through the eyes of an artist.

Inspired by Claude Monet's style of plein-air* landscape painting, the wind group expressed their appreciation and love for nature with light and dark strokes of paint.

*Plein-air, which derives its name from the French expression en plein air or "in the open air" is used to describe paintings that are done outside in nature.

Anamaria

Bela

Keira

Sofia

Trystan

Roy

How do people and animals use plants (Function)?

The wind group children are waiting patiently to eat the beans and carefully recording every step of their bean growing experiment. 

"A wood bug lives there!"

In the meantime, we are directing our focus on to how people and animals use plants. 

After a walk in the forest, this is what the children stated: 

"A squirrel!"

Trystan "Look, a squirrel is using that tree to climb." 

Roy "And as a house." 

Sofia "We eat plants. Not only the beans that we are growing, but also plants in the forest. Huckleberries, Blackberries, Salmonberries." 

Jason "People use trees to climb on. How can some trees be so strong?"

             "Bugs use plants. A roly poly (wood bug) eats plants and uses bark to hide." 

Sofia "Worms eat plants and they also help the soil. They make nutrients."

Trystan "Sometimes we eat roots. Like a carrot." 

Keira "I smell mint. Do people eat mint?"

We read the story "Tops and Bottoms" by Janet Stevens and ended our group time with a short assessment. 

The children drew a picture of different plant parts that we eat (Roots, Leaves, Fruit/Seed). 

Observing plants in detail

Roy "How do plants grow?" 

Trystan "Their roots help them drink water" 

Sofia "...and the sun helps them grow tall" 

Maddi "Plants need soil"

To find out more about this inquiry, we planted bean seeds and carefully observed and recorded the daily changes.

In less than a week, after giving our plants water and placing them close to a window (sun), our beans grew roots and are starting to sprout. 

The children are recording their discoveries each day and created their own story called "The Bean Seed" to share their knowledge with friends and families.

An understanding of the necessity of watering and caring for plants was shown, when they observed a seed that wasn't watered.

Trystan "That seed did not grow. It needs water." 

Jason "I can't wait for our beans to grow so that we can eat them"

We took a walk....

Living things need love and care! 

How does a plant grow and reproduce and how can people and animals contribute to it?

A walk through the forest allowed us to explore the plants in our environment and look at their different parts. The children used magnifying glasses while the teacher recorded their discoveries. 

Keira "A dandelion is yellow." 

Sofia "Look, this green plant has a root." 

Jason "How do plants grow? When can we eat huckleberries?"

Trystan "There are Salmonberry bushes in our forest." 

Roy "That squirrel is very fast." 

 We picked some plants and used the pressing kit in order to prepare them for our art project. Afterwards, the children will explore the parts of a plant and the way plants grow. When we finish the exploration, we will present the process through an art collage‎.

Plants in our Midst - Formative week

Transdisciplinary Theme: How we share the planet

Central idea: Plants play a unique role in our lives and the lives of animals

The Formative week is the first week of our new unit. This week helps teachers find out what the children already know, understand and can do in order to plan for further learning and growth. 

The children showed a vast knowledge when it came to PLANTS IN OUR MIDST.  The forest play time we have every morning helps the children get familiar with the plants in our surroundings and some ways that people and animals use them. 

We deepened our conversation and focused on the importance of being RESPONSIBLE towards plants and our environment.

The question: "Is it important for us to take care of plants?",  led us into a discussion about living and non-living things. One can show responsibility in caring for plants by understanding that when plants are picked up (removed from their source of feeding), they stop reproducing and gaining nutrition which leads to becoming a non-living thing. 

The Children recognized a few attributes of living things: they breathe, they grow, their size can change, and they need food and water. From this inquiry, we will deepen our exploration into how plants grow, reproduce and survive and the way plants are used by people and animals. 

Building together - Summative project

The Summative assessment happens during the eighth week of our inquiry and it is used as an evaluation technique that reflects the children's knowledge and understanding of the topic explored.

Community Scenario:

The children worked together to create a scene in the community. The children chose a workplace and decided on a problem that will take place at the scene. They had to decide who in the community could help and explore different ways of solving the problem.

The Wind group's story

 

Workplace: A community farm that grows vegetables and raises chickens and cows. 

Props: A farmer, a child, a dog, a cow, a doctor, a dentist, a veterinarian, a truck driver and chickens. 

The children wanted to present their scenario and show the connections between people and communities. The people on the farm grow the food and harvest it, the truck driver picks it up and arranges deliveries to different stores in different communities and people shop at those stores and enjoy the delicious food. 

The problem: When the truck driver arrived at the farm for his usual pick up, the dog that usually came to greet him was not there and he found that the farmer had a toothache and couldn't work in the field that day. The potatoes were not packed nor ready for pick up. The child that was helping the farmer had a terrible tummy ache and couldn't get out of bed to help collect the eggs from the chickens. The cows wouldn't eat any grass and so there was no milk. The driver decided to help everyone on the farm and reached out to other community workers: He phoned the Dentist to come help the farmer with his toothache, the Doctor to come help the child and the Veterinarian to come help the cow that wouldn't eat and the dog that didn't greet the driver as usual. 

Because of all the help from all these different people, the activity on the farm restarted and everyone was able to get their jobs done. 

This story showed an understanding of the importance of the responsibilities of each person and the chain of tasks which must be completed for production to continue as usual.  

Trystan "If the driver doesn't have food to pick up, then he can't get his job done."

Roy "So we will not have food to buy from the store."

Jason "Oh no, that can't happen." 

The children showed an understanding that part of building a stronger community is having people who work together and help each other.