RE teaching report.
Apr. 22nd, 2007 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaWe had ridiculously beautiful weather today, following a long streak of cold, dismal, rainy days, so only five kids showed up for Religious Education. Our theme today: flowers and seeds.
As we sat down in our circle, the kids were all talking about bike riding. (One of them had recently fallen off her bike and gotten two stitches in her forehead.) So after our chalice lighting, I commented that bike riding is one thing we like to do when spring comes, and that another thing some people like to do is to start growing plants. Did anyone have a garden at their house? Or flowers growing outside? Surprisingly, they all reported having a garden (albeit, in one case, "...but our dog always digs it up"). I asked them to explain what people do to make plants grow, and they did a reasonably good job of describing the steps and reporting the necessary elements - soil, rain, sunlight, warm weather.
I brought a bunch of flowers to class, and I let the kids handle them. There were purple asters and pink snapdragons. We talked about ways they were different from each other, and ways that they were the same. Then I asked them questions about where the flowers came from, and together we elicited their life story: they came from seeds, they were very tiny when they first poked up from the ground, and first the plant just has leaves - flowers come later. I read them Planting a Rainbow, a lovely, simple book about a mother and child planting a flower garden together. The book brought forth a lot of vigorous discussion about the flowers we had in class and about prior planting experiences.
We tried imagining what it would be like to be a flower. We curled up on the ground and pretended to be seeds, deep in the earth in the cold of winter. Then spring came and warmed the soil, and the seeds felt the sunlight reaching down to them. Water came from spring rain. The seeds put up a little shoot, then grew into tall plants, then put out buds (tightly closed fists), and then the flower blooms opened. We imagined that we were flowers feeling sun, wind, and rain. Then we sat back down in the circle.
"What are flowers for?" We read another book The Reason for a Flower, which is an absolutely gorgeous rhyming picture book about plant reproduction. That set us up to talk about seeds. I put two kinds of seeds on a paper plate: some bean seeds, and some flower seeds (gazania). We talked about how they don't look like much of anything, but a whole plant can grow from inside them. Seeds that look different might grow into plants that look different. The gazania seeds were particularly impressive - we compared the tiny little dry specks to the bright, showy flowers on the seed packet.
I brought out an apple and a pea pod, cut them open, and showed the seeds. I was surprised that several of the kids had never seen the seeds in an apple before. We talked about what happens to the seeds, and how tasty fruit is the apple tree's way of getting you to put its seeds somewhere they might grow. The kids all sampled the apple and the peas.
Then it was time to plant some seeds. I had covered our craft table with butcher paper, and I piled potting soil in the middle. The kids each got a peat pot and a plastic spoon to fill their pot with soil. I handed out bean seeds first, because they're easier to handle; then they each did a second pot with gazania seeds. We talked again about what our seeds would need to grow - soil, water, sunlight, warmth. The kids made guesses about which of their plants would sprout first and which would grow bigger.
I took them all downstairs to the bathrooms to wash their hands, while my co-teacher made the dirt go away. When we came back to the room, it was snacktime: apple juice and sesame seed crackers. I reminded them that the apple juice came from seeds, and they noticed by themselves that there were seeds on the crackers.
Class ran five or ten minutes short - the planting took much less time than I expected it to. We decided to just open up the divider between our room and the nursery. Just like every other time we've done that, the toddlers in the nursery immediately came through and sat quietly around our table, and our kids flocked into the nursery to play with the toys. I guess it's all about the variety.
The parents all seemed very happy about the kids' pots of dirt. Hopefully they'll keep an eye on the plant care, and all of the kids will get to see something sprout.
As we sat down in our circle, the kids were all talking about bike riding. (One of them had recently fallen off her bike and gotten two stitches in her forehead.) So after our chalice lighting, I commented that bike riding is one thing we like to do when spring comes, and that another thing some people like to do is to start growing plants. Did anyone have a garden at their house? Or flowers growing outside? Surprisingly, they all reported having a garden (albeit, in one case, "...but our dog always digs it up"). I asked them to explain what people do to make plants grow, and they did a reasonably good job of describing the steps and reporting the necessary elements - soil, rain, sunlight, warm weather.
I brought a bunch of flowers to class, and I let the kids handle them. There were purple asters and pink snapdragons. We talked about ways they were different from each other, and ways that they were the same. Then I asked them questions about where the flowers came from, and together we elicited their life story: they came from seeds, they were very tiny when they first poked up from the ground, and first the plant just has leaves - flowers come later. I read them Planting a Rainbow, a lovely, simple book about a mother and child planting a flower garden together. The book brought forth a lot of vigorous discussion about the flowers we had in class and about prior planting experiences.
We tried imagining what it would be like to be a flower. We curled up on the ground and pretended to be seeds, deep in the earth in the cold of winter. Then spring came and warmed the soil, and the seeds felt the sunlight reaching down to them. Water came from spring rain. The seeds put up a little shoot, then grew into tall plants, then put out buds (tightly closed fists), and then the flower blooms opened. We imagined that we were flowers feeling sun, wind, and rain. Then we sat back down in the circle.
"What are flowers for?" We read another book The Reason for a Flower, which is an absolutely gorgeous rhyming picture book about plant reproduction. That set us up to talk about seeds. I put two kinds of seeds on a paper plate: some bean seeds, and some flower seeds (gazania). We talked about how they don't look like much of anything, but a whole plant can grow from inside them. Seeds that look different might grow into plants that look different. The gazania seeds were particularly impressive - we compared the tiny little dry specks to the bright, showy flowers on the seed packet.
I brought out an apple and a pea pod, cut them open, and showed the seeds. I was surprised that several of the kids had never seen the seeds in an apple before. We talked about what happens to the seeds, and how tasty fruit is the apple tree's way of getting you to put its seeds somewhere they might grow. The kids all sampled the apple and the peas.
Then it was time to plant some seeds. I had covered our craft table with butcher paper, and I piled potting soil in the middle. The kids each got a peat pot and a plastic spoon to fill their pot with soil. I handed out bean seeds first, because they're easier to handle; then they each did a second pot with gazania seeds. We talked again about what our seeds would need to grow - soil, water, sunlight, warmth. The kids made guesses about which of their plants would sprout first and which would grow bigger.
I took them all downstairs to the bathrooms to wash their hands, while my co-teacher made the dirt go away. When we came back to the room, it was snacktime: apple juice and sesame seed crackers. I reminded them that the apple juice came from seeds, and they noticed by themselves that there were seeds on the crackers.
Class ran five or ten minutes short - the planting took much less time than I expected it to. We decided to just open up the divider between our room and the nursery. Just like every other time we've done that, the toddlers in the nursery immediately came through and sat quietly around our table, and our kids flocked into the nursery to play with the toys. I guess it's all about the variety.
The parents all seemed very happy about the kids' pots of dirt. Hopefully they'll keep an eye on the plant care, and all of the kids will get to see something sprout.
