Flowers and Insects

Spring is here.  Do you know why?  Look around and you can find traces of Spring everywhere.  As S happily expressed when we went for a walk in the neighborhood, “I love it!  Rainbow is everywhere-we are surrounded with lots of flowers!”  True to her words, our day was filled with beautiful flowers!  On our last day before the closure of school, we talked about how flowers grow from seeds and bulbs and how flowers attract so many different kinds of animals from honeybees to snails and chameleons!

Morning Acitivites

[Diffusion Art] We enjoyed making our own rainbow using coffee filters, washable markers and water spray.  E loved it so much that he did it three times!

[Spring Animal Drawing] Some of us liked to follow the steps to learn how to draw a ladybug, butterfly and frog while others liked being more creative :)

[Bug Hunting Game] We loved playing a kind of bingo game matching the lower case letters with the upper case letters.  We also tried to spell out a word and look what R made!

In our socially distanced circle, we started the day by jumping and counting the numbers of friends.  We counted in English, Japanese and then W taught us how to count in Norwegian and R, in Hebrew.  How lucky are we to have all these friends to teach us all the different languages in the world! 

Then Nanako put out some flowers in various colors along with strips of colors in red, yellow, green, orange, purple and blue as we sang I Can Sing a Rainbow.  We each had a turn to pick our favorite flower and we matched the colors.  Rafael mentioned, “That’s too easy for me!”  How about saying the six colors in Japanese?

We read a book called Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert.  We loved seeing the garden turning from seeds and bulbs into beautiful rainbow flowers. However, we were left with one question: What happens when summer ends?  What happens with the flowers? 

R: Flowers drop it dies.

Nanako: What does it mean when it says, “And when summer is over, we know we can grow our rainbow again next year”?

Y: You can plant again?  Buy some seeds put it in the grass and grow another one.

R: In the book there are also white seeds.

Nanako: Where do you ‘buy’ the seeds?

R: Flower shops.

S: Seeds come from the flower shop.  There is only seed in supermarket sometime people go in seed shop.

We all talked about ‘buying’ the seeds from the supermarket and the flower shops.  Nanako wondered if flowers also go out shopping for their seeds and bulbs...To find out, we watched a clip about how a flower grows from a seed and how the flower grows more seeds by the help of butterflies who help pollinate.  As R explained after watching the video, we can in fact find seeds “in the flowers!”    

Nanako: How did the flower get bigger?

S: When I went to supermarket, I saw another seed and I was surprised!

Y: (The seed is) In the ground.  There is sunshine it grow grow and the flower grow.

Nanako: Yes, this process is called photosynthesis.  With the help of sunshine as well as the water and the nutrients from the soil, plants can grow bigger.  When a flower blossoms, who helps the flower grow its seeds inside?

W: A man, he had a seed and then, first is in the ground...butterfly!

Nanako: Exactly, remember we learned about the honeybees ‘pollinating’ the flowers?  Then what happened with the petals?

R: Fall down.

Nanako: Did the flower die?

R: Seeds are growing, go down, drop and grow flowers.

Nanako: Who else likes flowers?

Y: Snails.

W: Chameleon eats the leaves...Honeybears come to eat honey.

A: Bug.

R: Insects. 

Nanako: I have seen birds eat the cherry blossoms.

R: My grandma sees that!

S: Then I pick some (cherry blossoms)!

W: When I was in the park, I saw a big tree.

R: You know, spiders are not insects.

Our ever so busy brain can be scattered minded but actually through this conversation, we can see how when we learn about one thing we are trying to connect our old knowledge to the new one and each time, we have a better understanding of the wonders of this world!  Since we all love singing, here is one song from today...

How Does a Caterpillar Go?

How does a caterpillar go?

Dear me, does anybody know?

How does a caterpillar go? 

A wriggle, wriggle all day long.

How does a honeybee go?

Dear me, does anybody know?

How does a honeybee go?

A buzzing, buzzing all day long.

How does a butterfly go?

Dear me, does anybody know?

How does a butterfly go?

A flutter, flutter all day long.

How does a busy spider go?

Dear me, does anybody know?

How does a busy spider go?

A spinning, spinning all day long.

Thank you for another lovely day!

Love always from the children in Flowers xoxo