Kindergarten and Grade 1 Experiences at Rosser Elementary
We got a delivery of larvae last Thursday! They are currently safely ensconced in their own food containers, for the time being. We will be transferring them to a larger home, very soon, which is prepped with branches for them to wander along and, hopefully, use to hang from when they are ready to form their chrysalises.
We will be learning about the life cycle of the butterfly, and the changes they go through – metamorphosis.
Students put beans (three Lima and one pole bean) into a ziplock bag which contains a damp paper towel. We will be watching the changes to see if the beans sprout, and how long the different stages of growth take.
Students will be posting their bean bag photos on their individual blog folios.
We have two plants that are the same. One is on the window sill getting sunlight and water. The other is under a brown paper bag. It is getting water but no sunlight. We will see what happens.
We cut a plant off of its root ball at the soil line. We stuck the stem back into the soil. Both plants are getting water, air, and sunlight.
We will monitor them to see what will happen.
We put celery into food coloured water to see what might happen. We also split the stem of a white flower and put each half into a different container – one with red and white and one with blue food colouring.
The next day we noticed changes in the plants.
We learned that stems have straw-like structures inside their stems. The job of the stem is to hold up the plant and to suck water up into the plant.
We began our plant unit by discussing what we already know (or think we know) about plants.
Our grade two students led small groups in studying about a particular invertebrate. This was a project planned and organized by our student teacher, Ms. Darcy Teal.
Their end result was a poster which had an answer sheet (about some key points) and a life cycle of their chosen animal.
This afternoon the groups presented their findings. The grade two in each group read the information they found out about: how their animal moves; how it catches its food; where it lives; how it protects itself; and other interesting facts they found. The grade one(s) described the animal’s life cycle. All students in each group answered questions from their classmates about their animal.
I was very impressed with how well all students presented their work. I have included pictures of their posters here, which are displayed on the bulletin boards outside our classroom. The grade twos have taken photos of their individual posters and will post them next week on their ePortfolios. They will also help the grade ones post them on their ePortfolios, as well. We cannot do them this week as the ePortfolio site is down for maintenance.
This was a great learning experience for all students. The grade twos are developing their leadership skills and the grade ones are learning how to work well with others, and how teamwork can be successful.
Here are the finished posters:
Look at the awesome mural that the students have made for our look at invertebrates which reside under the ocean waters!
Our grade twos did the painting and all students created an invertebrate creature. They first drew their creature, then they outlined them with Sharpie markers, and finally, they coloured them with oil pastels.
This mural is on a bulletin board in our classroom. Check it out if you are in the school.
Thank you to all parents who sent in an apple for our apple explorations. Students noticed that apples came in all sorts of varieties, colours, sizes, and shapes.
Students spent some time observing their apple and then making a pictorial presentation by colouring a paper apple in as close a copy of their apple as possible.
We have looked at how the apple life cycle works:
We will continue our explorations this week with the apple life cycle and how it correlates to the seasons of the year.
