Going With The Flow!

We had a generous donation of grapes with seeds last week. The kids were excited to have something different for snack. We talked about these grapes because we had tons and tons of them. I told the kids they had seeds in them. One of the children remembered that we had seen something on Sid the Science Kid earlier in the year with frozen fruit. We went to our Science Notebooks and found the entry and talked about it. We decided to freeze our grapes and use our prior knowledge to discuss how to get our grapes out. We had a great discussion and problem solving session. Additionally, this gave us a great chance to review relative temperature.

Once we were able to get our grapes out of the frozen water, we had to cut our grapes into two equal parts and pull out the seeds of each one. We practiced making two equal parts with plastic knives and then we finally got to eat our snack. The children had tons of questions about the seeds. Some children wanted to save some of the seeds in their notebooks and many of the children washed them, wrapped them and took them home. The next morning a few children had already planted their seeds!

What's Growing?

I promised earlier this year that I would write a post when I found these products in the stores.

Earlier in the year I found these super fun mini greenhouses on clearance at Wal Mart. We used them  when we were learning about basic needs of living things. I really fell in love with all of the products from the Miracle Grow kids line. I really liked the little greenhouses because they fit on our classroom window sill and they were affordable and easy to use. I also liked the fact that I was able to get a greenhouse for each of my science teams. Once I worked with these products, I have to admit, I ran back to the store to get more so I could hide them away for spring.

In the fall we had fun making our own terrariums. We made several at that time. I was able to get one of these on clearance and save it for spring since we had made our homemade terrariums already. I am excited to use the kit and see which terrarium I like better.

My favorite find this season has been the root viewer. I have wanted a root viewer for years but never wanted to spend the money plus shipping on this one. As you can imagine, I was thrilled to see this in the product line for under ten dollars. Although I do prefer to garden outside, I have found that there our times and situations where that is not possible. In the fall our school garden was going through some renovations and these products made it possible to grow indoors.