Science unit: What do plants and animals need to survive?

In science this fall we've been studying what plants and animals need to survive. We are investigating a fictional school whose garden no longer has any monarch butterflies living there, and using this story as a way to learn about plant parts, habitats, and how plants and animals survive. We've been on an observation walk, grown garlic with and without water, analyzed several types of plants that did and didn't grow, and planted radish seeds. Below are some pictures from our investigations as well as our models of how plants get the water they need!

Tapping our maple tree

On Tuesday we had special visitors from the nature center come to tap our maple tree in the front yard! First, we learned about features of maple trees, and how to identify them. Then the naturalists taught us about we collect sap from maple trees, showed us the tools they used, and we got to count and see just how fast the sap was dripping out of the tree! 

A few students got to pretend to be maple trees while the naturalists showed them how people collect the sap using a hose system when they have a lot of maple trees.  

Lastly, the students learned about how the sap from the tree is made into maple syrup. We talked about how the syrup many of us buy from the store is different from pure maple syrup, and then the kids were able to taste test two different syrups! They got to decide which was their favorite, and which they thought was the "real" maple syrup. Everyone had so much fun, and it was such a nice day to be outdoors!

More pumpkins!

After our very fun pumpkin patch field trip, our science unit last week was all about pumpkins. Here are some pictures from our pumpkin investigation:

First we brainstormed describing words for what the pumpkin looked like on the outside.

Then we did some measurements and found out if our pumpkin would sink or float! (it sunk)

Then we read the book How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? and made predictions about how many seeds our pumpkin had.

In order to find out the answer, we had to get the seeds out and count them! Here are kids working with their table partners to separate the seeds from the pulp and count them up. In the end, our pumpkin at 455 seeds. Grace was the kindergartener with the closest guess :)

And last but not least, after reading and watching a video on the pumpkin life cycle, we planted our pumpkin seeds! Who knows if they'll germinate in time this fall, but it was fun to do :)