What do plants need to grow?

What do plants need to grow?

The latest news from our inquiry.

In Autahi, we have continuing to explore our inquiry question: what do plants need to grow?

We have created mind maps to show how seeds grow into plants.

On Tuesday, we each planted some cress seeds.



We sprinkled the tiny seeds on damp paper towel. We wonder how well they will grow without any soil.



A few pinches of seeds should give us lots of lovely cress.



We made sure to add just a splash of water.



We really hope our seeds germinate!



On Wednesday, we were all anxious to check on the progress of our seeds.



We added an extra splash of water to keep them moist.



Some of us thought we could see our seeds swelling up.



Hopefully, we will have more cress news to report very soon - watch this space!

Meanwhile, we have also been growing our brains, with help from our Big Buddies from Tautoru.



They've been coming into class to help us practice our reading and our Rocket Words.



Learning our Rocket Words helps us to read confidently and fluently - so we're very grateful to our friends in Tautoru spending time practising them with us.



It's always fun hanging out together. Thank you Big Buddies!

Planting, observing and growing

With the help of our whanau we have each planted our own seeds.  Each day we water them and do some observational drawing.  We know that our plants need water and sun to grow.  Many of them have started to grow quite quickly.  When you look at our observational drawing sheets you can see how our plants are growing and changing over time.  If you look at the bottoms of the cups you can see some of the roots growing as well! 

                             When we observe we have to look closely and notice.  When we are drawing like scientists we have to draw what we see and not what we think we see.  We are looking carefully, taking our time and trying to notice all the little changes.                

To plant our plants we had to mix water and the soil tablet with the seeds.  We have labels so we know what our plants are.  Some of them didn't have labels so we had to make our own. 

This is a lead in into our next mini inquiry into the power of the sun! Stay tuned for more about that! 

Growing Things

This term we are loving planting and watching all sorts of things sprout and grow. Last week we planted some beans, peas and sunflower seeds.

We put them in a sunny spot and made sure they had enough water. Nine days later and look and what has happened:

   

We were so excited to see they have sprouted and are beginning to reach for the sky. We spent some time doing observational drawings and labelling yesterday afternoon. If you look closely you can see the roots growing down and the sprout growing up. Some even have leaves on them.

Planting for the Fair

Today Janet came in the afternoon and helped some of us plant succulents into pots to sell at the School Fair. These plants are called money plants. They are going to grow for a little while on our window sills. We are going to be learning more about plants and how they grow and change over the next few weeks.

It was fun to plant these today.
What a great day to do it on the
 first day of Spring.

 

Planting

Planting on the beach from Matariki on Vimeo.