Maple Seed Mix Up

As part of our study of plants, the kids in the 1-2s have been learning about seeds and the conditions that allow them to grow. Sadly, despite the staggering number of seeds dispersed by trees and plants, very few are lucky enough to land in conditions that enable them to sprout and grow. And even when those conditions are available, there are other hazards to the successful germination of a seed into a new plant.

To illustrate this point, we played a game this week to show kids how unlikely it is for a seed to become a new plant. In this game, each child took a card and looked at it secretly. Their card may have assigned them the role of a maple seed or one of the conditions needed for the seed to grow (water, sunlight, good soil, warm spring days) or even one of the dangers seeds face (lawnmower, hungry deer, poor soil, drought).  Once they had their "secret identity" in the game, they began to run the bases of the baseball field for a count of 10. Once they were told to stop, they needed to stay on the base they were closest to and then reveal whether or not the "seeds" in this round had landed in conditions conducive to growth.

Only once in the many times we played did our "seed" land on a base with all the essential growing conditions and none of the hazards (that group is pictured at the bottom). We reviewed the random nature of the game - you didn't know what anyone else was, you just "landed" on a base and hoped the other cards would reveal positive circumstances, and how this mirrors the random chance of seeds in nature.  The kids had a lot of fun and  learned that most seeds do not grow into new plants and that is why plants put forth so many seeds - in the hope that one or two will grow into a new plant.

Check out the pictures below from our game!

October Town Forest Walk

We had our first Town Forest walk today! The kids were very enthusiastic about helping Pat Conaway in his "Keep Natick Beautiful" initiative. They were only too happy to get some grabbers and get to work protecting Mother Earth! 

As proud as they were of their efforts, however, they were equally dismayed by the callous treatment of the Town Forest by local teens using the meadow for their party grounds. They had a lot of ideas about how to address this problem. We could set up a camera trap to see who is responsible. We could notify the principal of Natick High School and alert him to the problem. We could make signs (like our monarch caterpillar sanctuary sign) asking people to respect the Town Forest and follow a "carry-in/carry-out procedure. Pat Conaway even considered putting some trash and recycling bins in the field to at least keep the trash and recycling easy to cart away.

Check out the pictures below of our stewardship of the Town Forest!  And give your child a pat on the back for the hard work done today!

Fall is Here!

This week we have been noticing the seasonal changes as we shift into fall (despite the summer temperatures this week!). For our outside time, we used our classroom iPads to take pictures of the signs of fall we found.  Each child got to take one picture, then the House Tables looked over each kid’s photo to choose the one they thought best exemplified a sign of fall to present to the class. 

Kids made lots of great observations! Some noticed the changing color of the leaves, others chose to photograph a summer plant or flower that had gone by and was now withering or gone to seed. Still others looked to the skies to find birds who might be making their annual fall migration to warmer southern locations, while some kids looked to the ground at the plethora of fallen acorns. There were some photos that showed the changing landscape of the trees behind Sargent Field as well as skyscapes to show changing weather patterns that come with the temperatures cooling off. 

Enjoy the pictures below from our student photographers. Ask your child to show you which picture they took!