"Autumn Leaves are Falling Down"
9/27/2019
We continued our Fall theme this week by learning about leaves! The students were curious to know why leaves are usually green and why they change color in the Fall. We started off the week by reading “We're Going on a Leaf Hunt” by Steve Metzger. This story is about three children who hike over a mountain and through a forest to collect leaves of all kinds and colors. We then planned to go on our very own leaf hunt! The students walked, crawled and scurried around the playground searching for different types of leaves. During our leaf hunt, we found an area of land surrounded by beautiful trees and bushes! The children decided to name this space 'The Orca Forest'. We plan to do many more nature walks and science activities in our Orca Forest! Afterwords, we talked about the different colors, shapes and sizes of the leaves. Each child also guessed the number of leaves they thought we collected before counting the leaves out loud as a class. Documenting and Reporting are important components of any science activity. During small group activity, the students had a chance to document a leaf they had collected during the walk. They glued their leaf on the sheet, determined its size/color, and used unifix cubes to measure the length of their leaf. We also talked about the different parts of a leaf. The students were able to label the stem, blade, and veins of a leaf. After learning about the parts of a leaf, we created crystal leaves using salt, glue and watercolor paint. The objective of this lesson was to learn the basic structure of a leaf and label its various parts. The students traced their leaf with glue, sprinkled salt, dipped their paintbrush in the liquid watercolors and touch it on the raised salt! They were delighted to see the paint travel along the leaf pattern. Towards the end of the week, the children had a good understanding about the different colors, sizes, shapes and parts of a leaf. However, they were curious to know why the leaves change colors in Autumn and what makes them green. We began this lesson by reading “Why do Leaves Change Colors” by Betsy Maestro. We talked about how the days get shorter in the fall and how the lack of sunlight and cold weather affects the leaves. I introduced the idea of chlorophyll and explained how it gives leaves their green color. In the fall, chlorophyll breaks down causing the leaves to turn red, yellow, and orange. The students stripped chlorophyll from some of the green leaves they collected from our leaf hunt. Each child tore the leaves into tiny pieces and placed them in a clear bowl. I then added rubbing alcohol to the leaves and covered the bowl with plastic wrap. The next day, the students were amazed to see that the clear rubbing alcohol had turned green because of the chlorophyll! The students loved the play doh tree game for counting and strengthening fine motor skills. Lastly, we decided to return to our Orca Forest! The students were surprised to see how much it had changed in a few days. More leaves had changed color and the trees looked bare. You can see the change in the pictures below! The picture on the left was from our first leaf hunt on Monday and the picture on the right was taken on our second leaf hunt on Friday. Chili Cook Out and Fall Festival
We celebrated our Annual Chili Cook Off and Fall Festival on Thursday! This evening was full of fun and delicious chili! The students painted beautiful pumpkins in Art Class and showcased them at the event. Thank you for attending! Comments are closed.
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April 2021
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