This week, we had a beautiful time learning about and exploring blossoms! We started off the week by learning about the parts of a flower and each of their unique jobs. We closely observed a lily as we discussed the various roles of the stem, the leaves, the veins, the petals, the pistil and the stamen. We gently passed around and touched each part of the flower, and eventually dissected it to get a closer look. We followed up on what we learned about honeybees and pollinators last week by discussing how the beautiful sweet smelling petals attract pollinators, how the fuzzy pollen on the stamen rubs onto the pollinator's feet, and how the pollen sticks to the sticky pistil when the pollinator lands on the next flower. We repeated our pipe cleaner bee and corn meal pollen demonstration from last week to show how this works. :)
The biggest highlight of our week was enjoying a special visit from a blossoms expert! Harris' mom, Megan, owns Your Neighbor's Flowers, a beautiful flower stand at their home in Sandwich. Megan came in with an absolute bounty of freshly cut flowers, and sat with small groups of children to teach them how to make their own flower arrangements! She taught them how to measure the stems according to the height of their vase, how to cut the stems at an angle to allow the most water absorption, and how to creatively select flowers and foliage for a perfect bouquet! The class was then invited to create their own tags to tie on their bouquets. Everyone LOVED creating their own masterpieces to adorn our classroom and present to their parents at the end of the day! Please join me in expressing a huge thanks to Megan for sharing her expertise with us this week and sharing such a beautiful experience!
This week, we also enjoyed learning new flower- themed poems and songs. The class favorite was a sung version of this classic poem (along with hand motions):
Kind hearts are the gardens
Kind thoughts are the roots,
Kind words are the flowers,
Kind deeds are the fruits.
Take care of your garden,
Keep out all the weeds,
And fill it with sunshine,
Kind words and kind deeds.
Other highlights of the week included:
* making tissue paper flowers
* playing "flower I spy" and practicing our descriptive language skills as we attempted to help our friends guess the flower we were describing.
* Attending a very special library story time, where nature expert Hillary Behr taught the kids about bugs and helped them hunt for bugs in the gardens, trees and river
* Leaving lots of time for unstructured play indoors and outdoors with good friends. The class engaged in so much wonderful, collaborative play this week, and we were so happy to see some old friends reconnecting again after a break from school.
We are looking forward to another beautiful week ahead. Next up: Sand & Sea!
Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!
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