Plants in our Midst: Formative Week

Assessing prior knowledge.

Looking for collage items.

As you know, our new unit has begun. This week we began by collecting information from the children as to what they already know and what they want to learn about plants. We continued with sorting items into living and nonliving categories. The more we did the activity, the more excited the children became. Rather than sort the items I provided, they began to look around the daycare for other living and nonliving items to identify.

We went for a walk in the forest to collect items for a collage. Prior to the walk, we compiled a list of things we might see or hear on our walk. The items ranged from dirt, rocks, and trees to racoons and bears. After the walk, we made another list of what we saw to draw comparisons. One item that the children found in the forest that was not on their list was garbage! The children were upset that a bag of garbage was thrown into the trees. The children initiated their own conversation as to where garbage belongs and how garbage is bad for the animals. This led me to talk to the children about responsibility and ask what we can do to help. In the past Community unit, the children initiated cleaning the playground, this ties directly to our current unit and our responsibility to plants and animals which we will explore further.