Fossil?

Today the scientists of Lab 204 looked at some rock samples. Each rock was different, and we noticed many details and had many questions we were wondering about.

One rock had what looked like a mark on it. Some people thought that mark was a leaf fossil, or a leaf print, or even a tire track left by a car or bicycle.

We had a science discussion about this rock. We agreed that it was probably from a plant, and that the plant looked a lot like some evergreen leaves we had looked at earlier in the week. We had some lingering questions, though:
- How could someone find this rock if it was made before people were on the Earth?
- Was it made by sand piling on top of other sand, with a leaf stuck in between?
- Is this a print of a leaf, or something else, like a leaf fossil?

In the science unit we are starting, we will be exploring rocks, water, and how the Earth changes over time. We will get to the idea of fossils and other evidence that scientists have about the ancient Earth, but not for a while!

Bean Harvest

Here are some more pictures from our bean and tomato harvest. Here, we were looking at the tomatoes before we pulled the vine from the ground.

1, 2, 3, PULL!

 

A Visit to the Garden

On Friday, our class visited the Lowell Learning Garden. We helped to harvest two kinds of vegetables: tomatoes and beans.

We picked two kinds of beans, purple beans and rattlesnake beans. We will let these beans dry in our classroom over the next week, and then we will take them out of the shell. When they are dry, they can be stored to cook with or to plant again in the spring.

We also picked Pink Brandywine tomatoes, a very old variety that you cannot buy in the grocery store. We learned that you can pick green tomatoes, and hang them upside down to ripen to red! Our tomatoes are hanging in our classroom, slowly turning red.

We worked with a gardener named Victoria who was very helpful in teaching us about the garden and these plants. Thank you, Victoria!

We make careful scientific observational drawings of our vegetables. We added labels to show which parts were which.

Homework This Week

Dear Families,

For homework this week, students are working on making a presentation about the animal they just researched. Instructions came home with them today, along with their research from before to help them.

These presentations are now due next Monday, June 10th.

If your child has already finished their presentation, you can have him or her practice sharing it with an audience (especially projecting so that others can hear you!). Students should also continue to read for 30 minutes every day.

Also in folders today were two notices:

- We are looking for volunteers to help with a kite making project on June 20th.

- Field day is June 17th.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

The Flight of Our Butterflies

The Flight of Our Butterflies from Stephen MacLellan on Vimeo.

William Steig

We have read a whole bunch of books lately by a very fun author and illustrator, William Steig.

We had been reading fairy tales, including many versions of Cinderella, Rumplestilskin, and Little Red Riding Hood, when we read our first William Steig book, Shrek. We realized that many of his stories have similar themes as fairy tales.

One of our favorite things about William Steig is that he always chose amazing words. Shrek was not just ugly, he was repulsive. We like to ask each other, "What word would William Steig use?"

At the end of our author study unit, we made a video of what is similar about many of William Steig's books.


William Steig books from Stephen MacLellan on Vimeo.

Do you have a favorite William Steig book?

Butterflies!

We have been studying caterpillars and butterflies for the past few weeks. A butterfly is an insect. Like all insects, they have hard exoskeletons, 6 legs, and 3 main body segments.

Butterflies have a very specialized mouth. It is called a proboscis. Don't know how to say that word? Break it up into parts: pro   bos   cis   then blend it together. Try saying it three times fast!

Image source: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos, from Wikimedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_painted_lady_feeding_closeup.jpg

A proboscis is like a long, flexible tongue. The butterfly can curl it up close to its body when it isn't using it. But when a butterfly lands on a flower, it extends the long, thin proboscis and sucks up nectar from inside a flower. Bees drink up nectar the same way! Do you think butterflies are pollinators just like bees are?

We raised Painted Lady caterpillars. When we first got them, they were tiny larvae (caterpillars) only 1 centimeter long. They ate and ate, munching on their crushed-up leaf food. When they grew, they shed their skin, and emerged with a new, bigger skin. Eventually, they stuck to the roof of their containers, curled into a J shape, and made a chrysalis to protect them while they metamorphasized. In their chrysalis, they were the third phase in their life cycle. They were pupas.

Finally, they emerged from the chrysalis, dried their wings, and flew around. They are now adults. If there are males and females, they will mate and the females will lay new eggs. New tiny caterpillars will come out of these eggs, and the cycle will continue!