Planting a Seed

As we continued to explore seeds, the Red Band began their first attempt at growing seeds. We were fortunate enough to receive a wonderful variety of plants and vegetables seeds. We got straight to work categorizing by seed type, then by planting requirements. We learned that some seeds start better indoors rather than outdoors. We each began our seed journal with our first entry of our choice of seed: sunflower or collard greens. We read How a Seed Grows by Helene Jordan and entered page two: What a seed needs. During our first day of planting and observation the kids added details to their observations, remembering how they first added soil to their pots, made small holes for their seeds, covered the holes and added more dirt, and that they watered their seeds. After one week we noticed some growth in a few pots and are still waiting to see if all of the seeds will sprout.[embed]https://flic.kr/p/B6PKBG[/embed]Seed has allowed us to continue exploring our community and continue to search for ways to participate in our community. With the help of one of our families, we are now active members of The Benches Community Garden. Our first visit to the garden was intended to meet our resident expert and overall amazing human, Joe. Joe first told us the story of the garden which we learned is only as old as most of us, six years. He then helped us sort seeds by sharing his expertise on San Francisco's climate and soil conditions. On this first visit, Joe gave us our first piece of land to tend and helped us plant California poppies, rainbow lettuces, and two varieties of peas. Just like our sunflowers and collards at school, these seeds are under their first exploration as we enter late fall, cooler temperatures and steady rain. During our second visit we added our garden stakes and saw tiny sprouts, but are still waiting to see if in fact these are our sprouts or native or invasive plants.[embed]https://flic.kr/p/BpktXd[/embed]We launched a study of foods with seeds and created collages based on the book Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert. We created our own chart for recording the types of foods we eat. We even stumbled upon the work of Giuseppe Arcimboldo and worked to create our own food faces. The kids studied their own faces and created a shopping list to buy pieces they thought would help us create our own portraits. The kids first assembled and photographed their portraits using our grocery store finds before the final step of painting the portrait.[embed]https://flic.kr/p/Acf5Yz[/embed][embed]https://flic.kr/p/B4Qmec[/embed]We have started honing in our first project for seed: a giant seed. We've had whole group brainstorming, small group design, and finally presented our ideas to Gever, who helped us enlist the guidance of two experts in the Violet Band. More on that to come. As we continue with collaborations, we have had two sessions of NaNoWriMo co-working and mentoring with the Green Band. Games like Uno and Dominoes are also becoming great sources for reinforcing collaboration and numeracy, while helping us learn about being gracious winners and supporters for one another.[embed]https://flic.kr/p/Bmd24W[/embed][embed]https://flic.kr/p/AZtsz5[/embed]During these past two weeks we also introduced a new personality into the Red Band: Cubetto. Cubetto is a friendly little robot who is introducing us to the world of coding and robotics. Cubetto's charming smile is helping us solidify our grasp of spatial awareness and directionality while helping us expand our ideas of problem-solving and story-telling. Our last visit with Cubetto was an introduction to Cubetto's world and map. After choosing the castle as Cubetto's home, the kids got to work designing 3-D pieces to add to the map.  To learn more about Cubetto, visit www.primotoys.com[embed]https://flic.kr/p/AT6Xsz[/embed]