Back on board.

I have decided to come back to my blog after quite a while away from it beign busy having another child. My delicious daughter is now a year old and I am so fortunate to be at home caring for her rather than having her in care.

We share two lovely quiet week days each week together and three energetic creative days with her three year old brother home also.
He is becoming so interested in the world and I am enjoying introducing Science to him in little snippets. He asks wonderful questions and as a result of him asking me why plants grow we have been growing some bean seeds in a clear soda bottle.
We have been documenting the changes we see in the free version of the Educreations app and discussing changes we see each day.
Funnily enough I didn't notice that before the bean seeds germinate they grow bigger and softer from absorbing the water into the seeds.

Mr Three has loved seeing how much change there is under the soil before the seedlings appear.


 We make our daily observations and he lets me know what he thinks will happen next. At three and a half he really is excited to see the changes taking place.
Today we were amazed to see that our little bean plant leaves had turned back towards the window within 2 hours of being rotated away from the sun.

We also grew some bean seeds in cotton wool and kept them on the window sill just to see what would happen. A little bit of slow germination and then a fizzle. They did nothing. This was enough to cement it for Mr Three that the seeds in the cotton wool did not survive because they did not have food, just water, sun and air.

This has made me think about a product I have been working on, a quiz for Science. In the making of this quiz I have been looking at each of the standards in the American curriculum. One of the fifth grade standards states that "...plant matter comes mostly from air and water, not from soil." "Students should understand that plants require air and water to grow only. That they are not dependent on soil or sun".
This to me is alien to both what I have seen through planting seeds and read. When we teach the basic needs of all living things, students learn that plants need air, water, food and space to grow. Specifically though too plants take in carbon monoxide so this further confuses me. I will have to further investigate what the standards are meant to convey.