Our apple inquiry is in full swing!
First we started with a schema map. We talked about what we already know, or think we know, about apples.
Then we began reading. We have been reading lots of books about apples, both fiction and non-fiction. As we discover new information we are adding it to our schema map. If we discover that something we thought we knew is a misconception we’ll “let that apple fall out of the tree”!
A fun experiment was started as well. We cut an apple in half to look inside and see the parts of an apple. Students talked about seeds, flesh, core, skin, and stem. The apple was left overnight and students observed the changes in colour and texture. We’ll keep the observation going and make note of the changes we observe.
Other apple activities have been going on throughout the day. Students learned about a stamping art technique by making apple stamp paintings. We have also begun to build an apple tree in our classroom. There has been a lot of cutting and pasting as apples are added to the tree.
Our apple adventure will continue next week as we discover more interesting facts, create pieces of art, and conduct more experiments!
This week we are focusing on counting sets of objects and investigating how much a set really is. Yesterday we started out by counting the letters in our names. Then we compared the length of our names and looked at a number line to determine if the students’ names contained the same number of letters as mine, less than mine, or more than mine. We’ll continue our investigations this week looking at a variety of sets, telling farmyard stories, and playing games.
