Back to Reality

This week just flew by for me! It was our first week back after spring break and man does it have me wiped out! On Tuesday we moved seats around and my class is super social so this little picture popped into my head for about 5 of my sweet kiddos. Sometimes, I really think they just talk to hear the sound of their own voice! We got it together though and I *think* I finally have a seating arrangement that will work for a little while.

 

We also picked right back up into our plant unit that we were working on before break. My kids just have loved this plants unit! Before spring break we had an edible plant part party and enjoyed all different fruits and vegetables and discovered all the plant parts we eat on a daily basis.Tuesday we planted grass seeds and bean seeds. We also made some predictions about what would happen when you take away a need from a plant. I made this recording sheet for their predictions and later we will go back and record our observations of what happened.

 {click the image to download}

Our "control" seeds are sprouting nicely! The kids love to check up on them and water them every day. 

Grass seeds

Bean sprout

We closed this week with a super fun art project inspired by Eric Carle. Before we planted seeds I read the story The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and we talked about how Eric Carle illustrated his books. I showed them a quick youtube clip of Eric Carle making a collage and explained that we were going to mimic his process and use our painted papers to make a parts of the plant model. Thursday we painted papers. We thought about a typical flowering plant and the colors we would need to create the model. Then, I showed them an example of how to paint the papers. Oh my! It was so funny to see some of the type A personalities come out! Some of them really struggled with just going crazy and doing whatever they wanted with the papers. They ended up creating some beautiful paper to use for our artwork. Today when the papers dried, we cut out the various parts and glued them onto a clean sheet of paper. The kids are still working on them, but they are turning out to be so beautiful! Originally I was going to have the students label the plant parts but I think we are just going to leave them how they are and watercolor the background. You could almost hear a pin drop with how engaged they were concentrating on drawing and cutting out all of the pieces they need for their art work! I can't wait to see the finished product!