On Thursday afternoon the students in Division 19 went to explore the plants around the school yard. Mr. Yanko provoked them to explore like scientist, and in doing so the children examined the subtle yet significant aspects of the plants using their senses.
We first journeyed to the two planters outside of the Ms. Allanson and Ms. DiSpirito’s classrooms.
“Come gather around the plants. What do you notice?”
“I see sunflowers and a birds nest,” H.S. observes.
“Lean in to smell the plants?”
“This one smells nice,” J.T. notices.
“It smells yummy. Like cooking,” H.S. says.
From there we wander to a maple tree nearby.
“What colours are its leaves?”
“Red…Green…Yellow…orange” Replies the class.
“Why so many colours?”
“Because they are falling down,” I.A. says.
“This one feels crispy. How do they get dry?”
“In the summer,” replies L.M.
“Maybe they didn’t put on enough sunscreen,” Mr. Yanko adds.
We make our way to a pine tree and the students compare it to the maple.
“What about this tree? What do you notice?”
“It is green,” states H.S.
“It doesn’t have leaves,” comments H.B.
“It’s a forever-green tree,” adds L.M.
We venture over to the garden growing along the fence and the students are amazed by all of the beautiful flowers, fruits, and vegetables growing.
“Wow so many sunflower plants,” Exclaims H.B.
“Mr. Yanko come smell this it smells beautiful,” J.T. says while leaning in to smell a rose.
L.G.D.C. Notices a ton of apples grow. “Wow! There’s a million of them.”
As we head back to the classroom we stop at the planters outside of Mr. Yanko’s music room and notice a ton of tomatoes growing. Mr. Yanko invites the children to draw what they notice with the tomato plants. Many of the children head inside to grab their red pencil crayons, but when they start to draw they realize that all of the tomatoes are green and yellow, and go back to get the right colours to make detailed drawings of their observations.
After they finish their drawings we head inside with a green tomato and leave it on the window sill to ripen. All of the children make a guess as to how long it will take to ripen and what colour it will change to.
| Name | What colour the tomato will turn | How many days until the colour changes |
| L.M. | Yellow | 20 Days |
| H.S. | Red | 18 Days |
| K.T. | Red | 5 Days |
| A.V. | Orange | 6 Days |
| E.H. | Orange | 5 Days |
| L.G.D.C. | Yellow | 20 Days |
| J.T. | Pink | 5 Days |
| I.A. | Red | 10 Days |
| H.B. | Yellow | 2 Days |
| D.P. | Yellow | 4 Days |
| Mr. S. | Red | 15 Days |
| Mr. Yanko | Red | 8 Days |
| Ms. Taylor | Green | 0 Days |
I’d like to change my answer to Purple in 24 days! 🙂
Okay
Drawing tomatoes outside is sooo much fun! I would love to be part of this. Reminds me of my design school.