Exploring Spring Bulbs

We recycled the potted spring flowers from our still life art into an exploration of bulbs and root systems today. Children were invited to use tools like tweezers and magnifying glasses to gently untangle the roots and bulbs from the soil. 

There was some interesting talk as children used specialized vocabulary to describe their process and observations and compared the bulbs to each other. They noticed that different bulbs had various sizes, shapes and colours of bulbs and roots. 

Hyacinth Still Life Painting

The hyacinth bulb we have been watching has finally started to bloom! We placed it on the art table with watercolours and invited the children to observe and explore using the language of paint. 

It's always interesting to see how the children interprete and communicate their understanding of the same object in such varied ways. 

Investigating the Hyacinth Bulbs

We've been exploring the hyacinth bulb in our classroom. The children were very interested in observing what the bulbs looked like. After cutting a bouquet of the flowers for the art center, we placed the bulbs along with some tools at in our science area. 

The children carefully extracted the bulbs and roots from the soil. 

Once the bulbs were loose we cut them in half to see what the inside looked like. 

Dissecting the Hyacinth Bulb

Now that our hyacinths have bloomed we thought it would be interesting to put the bulbs out for exploration. We provided tweezers and safety glasses and invited the children to explore. 

The girls got right to work dissecting the bulbs. 

It was interesting to hear their observations of what they noticed. "It feels like worms but they are actually roots", "it looks like an onion", and "it's very soft underneath".

The children recorded their observations in a labelled drawing.  

Planting Bulbs

Meaningful Use of our Calendar

Ever since reading the article Calendar Time for Young Children: Good Intentions Gone Awry I have not used traditional calendar activities in my classroom. Instead I have tried to use life events to help children get a sense of timelines and used calendars to record events meaningful to them. 

A few weeks ago I bought an amaryllis bulb from our local grocery store.  My children were fascinated with it and spent a great deal of time examining it. I did not show them the box it came in, but rather asked them to imagine what they thought an amaryllis was and what the bulb would grow into.

They drew their predictions.

We planted the bulb and placed it in a sunny location in our kitchen, where it could be regularly viewed.

Using a calendar for the months of November and December, we recorded what day we planted the bulb. I asked each child to predict when they thought the bulb would bloom and we also recorded this on the calendar.

The calendar sits next to the bulb...

...and each day that passes that the bulb has not yet bloomed is crossed off on the calendar.

The Paper Whites Bloomed!

On the first day back from Winter Holidays we planted paper white bulbs with our children. Each day they came to school, we had a number of eager children checking out the bulbs to see if they had grown.

Mrs. Bombardier placed a number of measuring items (standard and nonstandard) and a tracking sheet next to the bulbs and encouraged the children to record their observations.

This past week the bulbs finally bloomed and filled our classroom with a wonderful spring smell! The children were amazed at how tall the bulbs had grown! Many were eager to measure the plant and compare it with their previous recording.