Spikes and Leaves
Today I discovered that the spikes on cacti are not a type of leaf alternative like the needles on the fir trees. Instead, the stems do the work the leaves do for other trees and the spikes are there to prevent other animals from getting to the water inside the cacti. This came up when we were discussing what was similar and different about cacti and other plants.
After reading ' Deserts & Dry Lands' under 'The Changing World' series to the children about cacti, I drew on the blackboard and allowed them to put in a cowboy in their drawing if they wanted to. Umayr was the only one who did so, complete with text bubbles about spikes getting stuck to his behind...: )We also labelled the parts of the cacti and I also emphasised on how the plant has adapted to its surroundings.
Before that, I covered 'Fundamental Needs of Humans' with the children by looking at the chart and reading " Start Up Religion: Belonging" by Ruth Nason which looked at different religions of the world like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism and related it to how religion brings people together.
Our salt solution and rock experiment to produce salt crystals did not turn up well so I decided to put it in the oven to dry up. Alhamdulillah, no major chemical reactions occured when I put it in the oven.
We did cacti because this is a vegetation common in the Salar de Uyuni and it also provided a variation to our plant study and enabled the children to study a variety of plants beyond what they observe in their environment.
Salt is part of our chemistry lesson on solutions and of course the Salar is the biggest salt flat in the world. I am going to continue with it next week where we will go deeper into what we have covered so far and go into light (the Salar is so clear, they calibrate satellites there), economics and math (the Salar has 10 billion tonnes of salt)and what should be my daughter's favourite; the pink flamingos and maybe even the pink algaes so we can do domain eukarya.
I am also trying to put together what I plan for lessons in the form of unit study books that yours truly is guilty of buying too many of. This will be given to my children in different levels of difficulty at the last week where we will review what we've learned and I can evaluate the children's understanding from their work in the activity sheets.
By golly, its already May, but hey, we've come a long way from messed up, on the spot planning, although I still do a lot of that you know, it's more interesting being spontaneous as long as you have one foot in the curriculum.
After reading ' Deserts & Dry Lands' under 'The Changing World' series to the children about cacti, I drew on the blackboard and allowed them to put in a cowboy in their drawing if they wanted to. Umayr was the only one who did so, complete with text bubbles about spikes getting stuck to his behind...: )We also labelled the parts of the cacti and I also emphasised on how the plant has adapted to its surroundings.
Before that, I covered 'Fundamental Needs of Humans' with the children by looking at the chart and reading " Start Up Religion: Belonging" by Ruth Nason which looked at different religions of the world like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism and related it to how religion brings people together.
Our salt solution and rock experiment to produce salt crystals did not turn up well so I decided to put it in the oven to dry up. Alhamdulillah, no major chemical reactions occured when I put it in the oven.
We did cacti because this is a vegetation common in the Salar de Uyuni and it also provided a variation to our plant study and enabled the children to study a variety of plants beyond what they observe in their environment.
Salt is part of our chemistry lesson on solutions and of course the Salar is the biggest salt flat in the world. I am going to continue with it next week where we will go deeper into what we have covered so far and go into light (the Salar is so clear, they calibrate satellites there), economics and math (the Salar has 10 billion tonnes of salt)and what should be my daughter's favourite; the pink flamingos and maybe even the pink algaes so we can do domain eukarya.
I am also trying to put together what I plan for lessons in the form of unit study books that yours truly is guilty of buying too many of. This will be given to my children in different levels of difficulty at the last week where we will review what we've learned and I can evaluate the children's understanding from their work in the activity sheets.
By golly, its already May, but hey, we've come a long way from messed up, on the spot planning, although I still do a lot of that you know, it's more interesting being spontaneous as long as you have one foot in the curriculum.
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