Ms. Arrendale went to the school today and checked on our garden. We planted sunflower seeds the last week of school. Guess what? They are growing! How big do you think they will be when you come back to school in August? Make a guess. Estimate. Draw a picture of you next to the sunflowers when you come back in August. Which will be bigger? How many sunflowers do you think we will have in our garden? What do you think we should do with them? Write a story about a sunflower. Look up sunflowers on the internet with a grown up. Do research in books at the library about sunflowers. What do they need to grow? How big do they get? Are there different kinds of sunflowers? Do you think all of the sunflowers in our garden will be the same?
Parents, use these pictures to get your child thinking and speaking about the life cycle of plants. Encourage them to write, research and read about sunflowers. Let them eat sunflower seeds and let them write about if they like or dislike sunflower seeds. Have them explain why they like them or do not like them. Have them guess how many seeds the sunflowers will have. Ask them to justify their answers. Maybe you can walk up and look at them. Let them take their summer journals and draw them at different times this summer. They can explore them over time and draw and write about their observations. They could write a "how to" story about how to plant and care for sunflowers (make sure they use language like: first you have to get the seeds, next you have to....... and so on). This is a skill they learned in Kindergarten this year and they will use in First Grade. Mostly, encourage their sense of wonder about how things grow.
I will try to get back up there to take more pictures in a few weeks to let them see the pictures and talk about the changes they observe. Enjoy the pictures!
Parents, use these pictures to get your child thinking and speaking about the life cycle of plants. Encourage them to write, research and read about sunflowers. Let them eat sunflower seeds and let them write about if they like or dislike sunflower seeds. Have them explain why they like them or do not like them. Have them guess how many seeds the sunflowers will have. Ask them to justify their answers. Maybe you can walk up and look at them. Let them take their summer journals and draw them at different times this summer. They can explore them over time and draw and write about their observations. They could write a "how to" story about how to plant and care for sunflowers (make sure they use language like: first you have to get the seeds, next you have to....... and so on). This is a skill they learned in Kindergarten this year and they will use in First Grade. Mostly, encourage their sense of wonder about how things grow.
I will try to get back up there to take more pictures in a few weeks to let them see the pictures and talk about the changes they observe. Enjoy the pictures!
