Botany Week II

Continuing with the Montessori First and Second Great Lessons!

Monday, May 24

• School Meeting: discuss Saturday's box turtle and snake sightings
• Early Childhood: celebrate Zac's birthday with the Celebration Sun and Solar Jar from Waseca Biomes, Colored Globe of the Continents from Nienhuis, and the 16 hole birthday ring, six beeswax candles, and ten wooden ornaments from Nova Natural

  have fresh pineapple as a birthday snack (this was so sweet because we used some NOS birthday paper plates which my grandmother bought in the 1960s and had in the back of the kitchen cabinet) and set out a portion of the pineapple for the gnomes in our garden

• Gardening Projects: cut back the hedge in front of house so that it is easier to get to the front spigot, set up a second hose, give all of the hedge clipping to the Early Childhood kiddos to build paddocks for the pretend horses, check on Plant Adoption and water all of the plants, set up Plant Experiments from The Curious Kid's Science Book by Asia Citro (design a plant maze, make a plant grow down instead of up)
• First Great Lesson: read and discuss "Soup of Elements" from Mythology of Microbes; do "Density Jar" activity from MM binder using water, oil, honey; look at two items with the same mass (11 grams) but one sinks and one floats (wood pencil vs. roof tile from Teifoc kit); explain density as a relationship between mass and volume; recall that sponges always float no matter how full of water they are, icebergs always float

Tuesday, May 25

• EC: the big event of today was watching the City repair the sidewalk!

  we watched them dig up the loose gravel which had been put down temporarily, tamp down a new foundation, put down the wood frame for the new sidewalk sections, and pour and smooth the concrete!

  I had everyone stay far away from the workmen but, when all of the equipment had left and there was only one worker remaining to smooth out the wet concrete, he gave us permission to go more closely and watch what he was doing; he answered the children's questions and even allowed them to touch the wet concrete since he would still be able to repair any marks they made with their fingers

  it took up most of the morning but it actually went really well with the First Great Lesson conversation we had today about rocks, since concrete is a manmade rock and he told us all of the ingredients in it!

• First Great Lesson: recall "Soup of Elements" from Mythology of Microbes, look at Layers of the Earth cards from the Rock Cycle Mat by Waseca Biomes, do "Make a Floating Compass" and "Clapping a Beat" activies from the MM binder, add "Soup of Elements" to MLB

  Accepted Half-Lives of Commonly Used Radioisotopes (PDF)

  one child wondered aloud, is the base of < compass >, < pass > ?
  yes, it is!
  com + pass ---> compass

• Snack: read How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World by Faith McNulty
• Play: tag, giving horses a bath, magnolia leaf fights (the magnolia is shedding many of its leaves right now in preparation for blooming)

Wednesday, May 26

• Nature: watching our first ladybugs go into their pupal stage! they are bright yellow when they first transform (and, just like caterpillars going into the chrysalis, they wiggle and look exactly like a kid deep inside a sleeping bag) but then become dull and more camouflaged
• SWI: adding the layers of the Earth to the MLB has actually been a really useful refresher for one of the three suffixing conventions (consonant doubling)

  Inner Core: the base of < inner > is < in >
  because < in > ends with a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, the consonant is doubled

  in + er ---> inner

  Outer Core: the base of < outer > is < out >
  because < out > does not end with a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, no doubling

  out + er ---> outer

  this convention prevents confusion; without it, < hopping > would look like < hoping >
  hop + ing ---> hopping
  hope + ing ---> hoping

  in other words, if there is doubling, you know the base did NOT end with a replaceable e (which is useful for figuring out word sums)

  fatted ---> fat + ed
  fated ---> fate + ed

• First Great Lesson / Snack: have a student bring in examples of the IL state mineral to pass around (fluorite), look at how fluorite forms octahedrons naturally, consider the relationship between fluorite and the word fluorescent, read and discuss a quick chapter "The Building Blocks of Life" from Mythology of Microbes, read article Freshly Made Plutonium from Outer Space Found on Ocean Floor from NPR, discuss Betelgeuse going supernova in the near (0 - 200,000 years from now) future and look up what scientists believe about the reaons behind its recent dimming

  interestingly, these articles show that heavier elements aren't only formed by stars going supernova... two neutron stars can collide... stars can belch out new elements as an early part of their dying process (one student described this as coughing up creation goo)

• Unscheduled Wednesday:

  introduce new board games Cauldron Quest (cooperative) and Election Night! (competitive)

  discover that although Cauldron Quest does not require reading it does require an understanding of odd and even numbers so I gave a quick lesson on that to my rising first graders

  follow a chipmunk around and try to find the entrance to his burrow

  first magnolia blossoms today!

  play with Goobi kit

  test all of my eggs from a friend's chickens to see if they have gone bad (which they hadn't)... this is one of Zac's favorite ways to help out in the kitchen and simply involves placing the eggs one at a time in a basin of water (fresh eggs sink and eggs which are bad float)

  give horses a bath

  set up a new sprinkler in the year which is easier to run through than the one in the vegetable garden

  run and run and run and run and run through the sprinkler

  stand directly over the sprinkler and try to catch all the water in your bathing suit

  put a pot from the play kitchen over your head like a helmet to keep from getting wet

  figure out where to stand so that you see a rainbow in the spray of water

  invent sprinkler tag (to catch us, we have to be in the sprinkler range)

  have contests over who is wetter

  figure out how to deal with masks when you're playing in the sprinkler (I'm changing to a paper mask because they don't make an echo when they get wet, which is annoying)

Thursday, May 27

• EC: lots of free outdoor play, request new ingredients for the mud kitchen (they love new ingredients for sensory play and I love to clean out my spice cabinet this way; I even have a special shelf in my kitchen now for things which I am ready to hand over to them; today it was two lemons, two limes, Cajun seasoning, Italian seasoning)

• First Great Lesson: read The Stuff Between the Stars: How Vera Rubin Discovered Most of the Universe by Sandra Nickel and have a long conversation about dark matter, get caught up on MLBs
• Second Great Lesson: read and discuss "The Molecular Machines" from Mythology of Microbes
• Lunch: play an epic game of What Does Johnny Have in His Pocket?

  (I learned about this game years ago from Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic by Betty McDonald)

  here's how far we got before people were ready to quit memorizing:

  • UFO
  • canteen tent
  • ladybug
  • magnolia tree
  • plum tree
  • Ms. Renee
  • leaf
  • McDonald's
  • cheese cup
  • star
  • fork
  • whole world
  • noodles
  • box jellyfish
  • mulch pile
  • yogurt cup with a crack in it
  • milk jug full of forks
  • camel
  • carrot
  • tree that has fallen upside down
  • Christmas tree with a crack in it
  • more leaves
  • mailbox
  • futuristic water bottle
  • universe
  • two gallons of water
  • balloon
  • mule
  • the number "1500"
  • fan
  • expandex pocket
  • trash can
  • silver bell
  • list
  • super giant rabbit
  • flour
  • school
  • the song "It's Raining Tacos"
  • 3 clouds

• Board Games: Cauldron Quest, Election Night! (today we tried out the multiplication side of the board), and "design your own board game"

  I have to say that Election Night! is a fantastic board game! it has addition and multiplication facts, strategy, Electoral College (plus the number of votes per state is up to date), and US geography (locating each state, the two letter postal abbreviations, and even state flags!)

  designing your own board game suddenly became the hot new trend here and it's been very interesting to watch

  students are making their own game pieces (origami and modeling beeswax are popular options), conceptualizing the theme and designing the board, figuring out the game mechanics for play such as how you move around the board and how you win (plus other details like how many players, what ages, cooperative or competitive)

  
  
  

  for children who get really into this, you can actually buy blank board game boards, spinners, etc.

  I have plenty of dice and spinners left over from old games which we disassembled, and plenty of cardstock for boards and cards; as always, I'm having them make a rough draft of their design first and then come to me with a materials list

Friday, May 28

• School Meeting: share the new acronym which has replaced UFO

  UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena)

• EC: lemon volcanoes, mud kitchen, horses, fort building, Quixo, Goobi, tree climbing, tag, lemon soccer, finish sewing Pony Reins

• Nature: watch a pair of squirrels run from a tree to under a large bush... followed by another pair... followed by another pair... followed by another pair... followed by a lone squirrel (it was very strange)

  the students love to play with acronyms so they would probably have called this USP (unidentified squirrel phenomena) if we'd thought of it

• Gardening Projects: direct sow our replacement rutabaga seeds; plant sunchoke and horseradish roots in extra large pots because it doesn't look like our pallet garden beds will happen this year; purchase three cucumber starts since our seeds are having trouble germinating and that's a plant we really want to have; notice that I forgot to close the garden gate last night and something promptly ate all of the cabbage, marigolds, lettuce, and celery
• Second Great Lesson: recall "The Molecular Machines" from Mythology of Microbes, do "Lemon Volcanoes" and "The Usefulness of Membranes" activities from MM binder, read and discuss "Which Came First?" and add "The Ancient War: Membranes vs. Machines" to MLB, do the "Battle Artwork" activity as the illustration
• Board Games: Election Night!, Cauldron Quest, and "designing your own board game" continue (a lot of real-life math is happening with the board game designs, such as cutting cardstock for playing cards and having to read a ruler and figure out half of 5 1/2)

• End of the Day: play Rhyme Out!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Plant Families - 2021

Our Botany plan is to look at the ancient beginnings of plants -- via the Montessori First and Second Great Lessons -- and then examine their family tree more in depth, focusing on plant families which we can have direct experience of through growing them in our garden this year. So my next step is to categorize the plants from my Plant Adoption Notes post and then I'll begin to place them in a rough order for study. We won't be able to dive into every family represented here, but I can choose which will give us the most "bang for our buck" and which I think the children will find most interesting!

Amaranthaceae

beet, Swiss chard

quinoa and spinach would also go here

Amaryllidaceae / Alliums

garlic, onion

Anacardiaceae

fragrant sumac

this is also the family of poison ivy!!!

Asparagaceae

asparagus

Asteraceae / Sunflowers / Daisies

black-eyed Susan, calendula, chamomile, coreopsis, elecampane, Joe Pye weed, lettuce, marigold, prairie sage, purple coneflower, Jerusalem artichoke (sunchoke), sunflower, tall boneset, wormwood

artichoke would also go here

Brassicaceae / Mustards

cabbage, honesty (lunaria), horseradish, kale, radish, rutabaga, turnip, woad

Borages

comfrey

Bromeliads

pineapple

Buckwheats

rhubarb

Cucurbits

acorn squash, butternut squash, cucumber, pumpkin, summer squash, watermelon, zucchini

Custard Apples

pawpaw

Dogbanes

milkweed

Ebenaceae

persimmon

Fabaceae / Legumes / Peas

bush bean, sugar snap pea, alfa;fa

I would love to grow popcorn plant!

Grapes

grapevine, Virginia creeper

Hazels

hazelnut

Honeysuckles

valerian

Laurels

avocado, sassafras

cinnamon would also go here

Magnoliaceae

magnolia

Mallows

marshmallow, okra

cotton and cacao would also go here

Mints

basil, holy basil, lamb's ear, lavender, lemon balm, lemon thyme, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme

Morning Glories

sweet potato

Moraceae

mulberry, fig

Palm Trees

date

coconut would also go here

Rosaceae

black cherry, hawthorn, plum, strawberry

Rutaceae

lemon

Solanaceae / Nightshades

eggplant, potato, tomato, bell pepper

Tropaeolaceae

nasturtium

Umbellifers

carrot, celery, dill, fennel

Urticaceae / Nettles

stinging nettle

Walnuts

pecan

Philosophy Chat About "Nature" and "Natural"

We had such a great Philosophy conversation last Tuesday that I wanted to give it its own post! Our conversation was inspired by guiding questions in Little Big Minds: Sharing Philosophy with Kids by Marietta McCarty. The philosopher we considered was Lao Tzu. We also read Wild by Emily Hughes.

What is Nature? How would you define it?

Nature is wild and people can explore it but they have to take care of it

Nature is dangerous; well, some things are dangerous, some things aren't

Nature has a balance: predators / prey, life cycles

you don't have to do anything and it'll happen

what everything's made out of ... particles, stardust, everything

What about things that humans make? Is my house Nature? How is my house different from the cardinal's nest? Or is it not?

for the cardinal's nest, humans didn't affect it
we didn't do anything

glass, fabric, paint, mortar, bricks... you can't find that out in Nature

it's what inhabits it
we're not considered Nature, we're considered humans

scientists don't count us as animals

a second ago I saw a leaf fall to the ground; that's Nature, that's the wind

glass is sand that's been heated up a lot
the brick is made of clay and stuff
the paint... if you go back a lot it'll be in Nature
I think technically it is Nature

if we built a bird nest it wouldn't be considered Nature
if a bird did it would be, but why?
a human builds it and we're animals
a bird builds it and they're animals

it's just life
you go into the woods and you just see life
you don't have to go far
sometimes you can view it in your own backyard

a house is a nest for humans

but an animal couldn't do that
even though it's made out of natural materials

What about elements on the Periodic Table that are made by humans using a particle accelerator such as the Large Hadron Collider? Is it Nature if it's made out of the same bits as all other stuff in Nature? Or is it not?

if a bird built a tube and sent particles through it, would it be Nature?

you don't drive down the street and say "there's some Nature" and point to a house, but you would with a bird nest

if we don't have to do anything and it happens, then it's Nature

birds build nests, squirrels build nests, chipmunks build holes
they're changing the world too

if it's something animals do, and we're animals, than the car would be Nature

it's something in the environment that's alive

everything that is not manmade is Nature

Is outer space Nature?

Nature is living stuff, where stuff can thrive and live

water can wash part of the ground away; that would be Nature

grass is growing
stuff is living

outer space is natural but maybe not exactly Nature

we can move trees... is it still Nature?
we can put stinging nettle in a pot and move it around

space is neither Nature nor manmade
it's a new word someone has to make up

neither Nature nor manmade
it doesn't support any living life that we know of yet... we're all looking at Mars

let's just wait to see what people will call it
but I'll just call it space
it's sort of like people who don't have a gender

I think that space is the most natural thing there is, the most ancient, the most original

if things built by people are unnatural than space is the most natural thing there is

if everything is made of star stuff, space and everything in it is the most natural thing

everything is equally natural
in order to define natural, you have to define unnatural too

grass is natural
we just barely affect it

I'm basically going against what I was saying before

people touch grass all the time; it's still considered natural
people take trees, turn their wood into a telephone pole, now it's not natural

in response to Taoism...

children are way more in the flow than adults

being in the flow of the universe
it's really hard not to be

maybe Nature is the word we use to mean going with the flow
a bird building a nest is carried by the seasons

when you're going against the flow you can tell
you're pushing; it feels sharp; it feels kind of crunchy

in response to Wild...

she was in the flow
they were interrupting the flow

she wasn't trying to destroy things

she took the animals with her!

she didn't understand what they were doing
why do you do this? you're supposed to do this

it's okay for her to be in the wild
she had somehow been there and she had been taught the wild way

imagine animals taking you and trying to teach you the animal way; you'd be running back to the house, back to the human way

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Botany Week I

Some quick notes & links about our Outdoor Classroom and Botany activities this week!

We have already done quite a bit in the first two and a half months of school!

We've done lots of plant research and plant projects (learning about the parts of the biome; spending time outside in the yard for more hours than ever before and observing our microbiome; watching the world wake up from Winter; growing plants from seed as well as many other parts of the plant; designing plant experiments and checking on their progress; hardening off and thinning seedlings; discovering plant pests and looking up how to handle them in a natural way; researching companion plants; designing and planting a vegetable garden, pollinator garden, and medicinal herb garden).

Now, in the last 6 weeks of school, we are going to extend some topics, wrap some topics up, and focus on making connections between different components which we have learned about individually. Surprisingly, our school year is already ending, so it's time for weaving in the loose ends!

We began this week with the Montessori First Great Lesson and are on our way to the Montessori Second Great Lesson and where plants go in the Tree of Life. The answers to How Life Began lie in the realms of Microbiology & Chemistry, so we have to make some stops there along the way as well...

In the Waldorf scope & sequence, I like to do the Timeline of Life in grade 4, Botany in grade 5, and Microbiology & Chemistry in grade 7. Since this is a mixed age classroom we are doing a bit of each, in an interconnected way.

Monday, May 17

• Early Childhood: watch the City come and cut down a dead tree which was growing along our sidewalk (watching the chainsaw was very exciting, plus they cut off the stump and let us keep it), find a beetle and make a habitat for it, continue our Circle Time (we will build on this and now begin to create a long sequence of movement verses which together tell a story about a Farmer in Springtime), make and measure 85 inch long pieces of finger knitting for Pony Reins
  Circle Time

  1 - Morning Verse

  2 - "The Farmer in the Dell" song
  This Is the Way We Wash-a-Day, page 30, track 28

  3 - "Galloping Horses" movement verse
  The Breathing Circle, page 75

  4 - "Two Fat Gentlemen" finger play
  The Breathing Circle, page 82

  5 - "Five Little Peas" finger play
  A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 104

  6 - "Little Brown Rabbit" finger play
  A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 105

• Nature: find a fungus suddenly growing on our biggest tree stump, discover that there are now two cardinal hatchlings in the nest!
• Read Aloud: continue our lunchtime read aloud story, Audubon by Constance Rourke
• First Great Lesson: read The Stuff of Stars by Marion Dane Bauer, lay out The Birth and Death of a Star material
• Ancient Egypt: finish up Ancient Egypt by passing out Ancient Egypt Timelines, mixing watercolor paints (lemon yellow, golden yellow, vermillion, ultramarine) and doing a desert color experience and a wet-on-wet watercolor painting of the Sphinyx
• Board Games: we are finding that board games work well at the end of the day when it is hot and people are tired of running around and want to get out of the sun; today it was Harry Potter Clue

Tuesday, May 18

• EC: help water and care for plants, begin to learn elements of "Springtime Garden Circle" on pages 83-85 of Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures: Movement Enrichment with a Therapeutic Approach for Early Childhood by Nancy Blanning and Laurie Clark (starting with "In Springtime" song, "Barley, Wheat, Oats & Rye" verse, "Little Robin Redbreast" finger play), begin to sew felt pieces for the Pony Reins using the running stitch (unlike the beanbags, this project won't work correctly if you accidentally do the whip stitch), play Bear and Fishing imaginative games, use two old handheld corded phones to "call" one another during snack, play Who Pooped?
• SWI: students continue to walk up to me and spontaneously suggest SWI investigations, which is fantastic!

  why is < great > spelled with an < ea > intead of a replaceable e?

  is the < bot > in Botany a prefix? is it the same as the < bot > in robot?

  does < verbal > have < verb > as its base? if so, what is the relationship between them?

• Medicinal Herbs: look up comfrey information in Walking the World in Wonder: A Children's Herbal by Ellen Evert Hopman, decide where elecampane and comfrey should be planted (elecampane in the little area to the left of the shed door and comfrey in the area to the right)
• First Great Lesson: read "The Beginning" and "The Dark Ages of the Universe" from Chapter 1 of Mythology of Microbes (thank you to the family who printed this long document and put it neatly in a binder) and get student feedback... there were many excellent questions about The Great Inflation as well as singularities and black holes

  add The Great Inflation to our new green MLBs

• Handwork / Philosophy / Nature: sit and knit and have a Philosophy chat, discuss questions about Nature from Little Big Minds: Sharing Philosophy with Kids by Marietta McCarty, discuss the philosopher Lao Tzu and Taoism, read and discuss Wild by Emily Hughes

  I am going to give this wonderful conversation its own blog post!

• Games: Mad Libs, Wildcraft: An Herbal Adventure Game

Wednesday, May 19

unscheduled Wednesday was in full force!

lots of water play including making a model of an Ancient Egyptian shaduf, running through the sprinkler, and having a Water War by throwing buckets of water on people (sometimes very unexpectedly)

thank you to the parents who came early and helped us set the Canteen Tent back up before school, who stayed during the morning and helped me make some decisions about Botany projects that would reasonably fit into our last few weeks of the school year, and who walked around the yard with me throughout the day and helped identify unwanted volunteer trees that should be removed from our beds so that the beautiful things my grandfather planted could thrive

we had a short Philosophy lesson at Snack Time; I read Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein and asked the class, "how is Wabi Sabi like Taoism?"

their thoughts:

stop trying to swim against the current in the river

if you just let yourself flow with the water it's relaxing and you don't have to do anything

there's no difference between anything
life and death
light and dark
sickness and wellness
destruction and creativity

it's flow, the flow of life

everything has a flow of nature
each difference has one thing the same

being alive and being lifeless and dead

I believe that something worn and simple can also be beautiful

and I asked them, "why is a pair of pants that has been patched more beautiful than a pair of pants that is brand new?" and we talked about the hands that cared for the thing, that took the time to repair it

just as we have repaired the Canteen Tent over and over!

the duct tape on the joints doesn't look ugly to me... when I look at it I see loving hands that have put it back together over and over, parents that have come back to help over and over because they care about us

we didn't just throw it away the first time it fell down

to me, the Canteen Tent is part of Wabi Sabi

and they also loved the idea of building the entrance to the Tea Room so low that even the emperor has to bow down to enter

no one is more important than another

when you're thinking about yourself, you're outside of the river

Wabi Sabi is asking you to jump into the river
it's inviting you to remember to go with the flow

Thursday, May 20

• Classroom Routines: since we have so many planting projects to keep up with -- and since making careful observations and learning more about what we've each planted is the heart of our Botany study -- we have decided to begin each day with checking on our plants first and then sitting down with a chapter book for SSR

  so we took everyone's Plant Adoption Forms and put them on one master clipboard in the Library Bin; now, no one will go and grab a library book without first being reminded to check on their plants

  Plant Projects
  SSR
  Main Lesson and begin MLB
  Snack (and Circle Time for the littles)
  finish MLB, do individual Math work
  Lunch

  the rest of the day is Choice Time and free Play

  we get done what we need to get done first thing before it gets too hot and, of course, when people get too warm they can switch over to board games or Handwork instead of more active kinds of play

• EC: play with kinetic sand, help organize and water plants, plant the celery we grew from a celery bottom, add non-viable seeds to mud kitchen, lots of outdoor free play, play Pengoloo and Socken Zocken
• Planting Projects: order new rutabaga seeds after the viability test begun last week showed no signs of life (wet paper towel in a Ziploc bag), organize all the seedlings and look to see what is big enough to go in the garden, plant nasturtium and bush bean in the straw bales, determine what other packets of seeds need to be tested for viability vs. what seeds might have been eaten by the mouse in the Art Room and just need to be replanted, harvest radish microgreens (spicy!), pull all the volunteer wheat out of our straw bales, look at the tall grass flowers and compare them to the wheat plants

  we still have a few things lined up along the sidewalk that need to go in the garden (hazelnut, persimmon, elecampane, comfrey, milkweed, rhubarb, hosta, sunchoke, horseradish) but mostly everything is done

  today I finally planted the thyme and red and green lettuces

• Math: in Math right now, children are working on using the Montessori materials to solve real-life problems, such as their Techniques of Problem Solving card decks or the Pythagorean Theorem worksheet (which goes really well with the Checker Board)

• Science: read Karl, Get Out of the Garden! Carolus Linnaeus and the Naming of Everything by Anita Sanchez, discuss scientific names vs. common names, consider why Latin might work so well for scientific names (you can tell right away that it must be the scientific name and not the common name, it is a dead language so new words aren't coming into it and old words aren't changing their meaning, many well educated people -- including scientists -- already know Latin)

  even if you didn't learn Latin in school, it is connected to so many of our English words that it is easy to find related words and remember a Latin word (I gave the example of perambulare, which I learned in high school Latin and will never ever forget because of perambulator)

  the children pointed out that the spells in Harry Potter are based on Latin and so many children of today are learning a little Latin without even realizing it!

Friday, May 21

• EC: continue to add elements to the Springtime Garden Circle (our new song: "It's Fun to Dig Potatoes" from This Is the Way We Wash-a-Day, page 28, track 25), work together to design and build a Plant Maze, read Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home by Judy Hawes, set up and observe our new Ladybug Land with Live Ladybug Larvae
• Botany Experiments: choose between "Challenge: Design a Plant Maze" on page 33 and "Challenge: Make a Plant Grow Down Instead of Up" on page 49 of The Curious Kid's Science Book by Asia Citro, draw a rough draft of your design and write a materials list, collect the necessary materials and build your design, start seeds in peat pots and add them to your experiment

  the Plant Maze experiments will be using nasturtium seeds and the Growing Upside Down experiments will be using sunflower seeds

• Science: read Nefertiti, the Spidernaut: The Jumping Spider Who Learned to Hunt in Space by Darcy Pattison

  unexpectedly, there was also a LOT of playing with periscopes this afternoon as one student worked through his ideas about bouncing sunlight off of multiple mirrors as part of his Growing Upside Down experiment design (and friends were very intrigued!)

• Planting Projects: spread mushroom compost on our straw bales to help nourish our fruits, veggies, and flowers (thank you to the family who donated six buckets of this lovely compost!)

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!