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Observations and Discoveries

We just finished our first week of learning about the Rainforest. I love that our Mother Goose Time curriculum lets us get fully immersed in a theme for a whole month. It is so much fun to have an underlying theme built into what we are doing. I try to make sure we get plenty of supporting read a alouds and find movies or documentaries if appropriate. We were really excited to start the rainforest month because the rainforest is so beautiful. This theme is also providing plenty of animal study and science experiments, both of which are favorites around this house. This first week has been all about the floor layer of the rainforest. We have learned about jaguars, roots, lily pads, mushrooms, and leafcutter ants so far.

What I like about this week is that 2 different science experiment projects were offered. We had a root experiment and a mold experiment. I liked these projects because not only are they a great hands on way to learn, but they are also long term experiments which will require some patience before we see the results, and it requires observations of changes over several weeks.



We set up the mold experiment by taking 3 slices of bread and then making predictions about what we thought would happen to each one. We made predictions for a toasted piece, a normal piece right out of the bag, and then a damp piece. After we set the bread up we taped the bags to the wall and we have been observing them daily. We still don't have any mold growing but it has been fun looking them over carefully searching for any signs of mold. 

After setting up our mold experiments we went outside to take a nature walk. We don't live in a rain forest but we do have some really beautiful forested areas here in the Pacific North West. We really paid attention to the floor layer in our forest. We were able to see lots of mushrooms growing on the damp trees and earth, we were able to observe some visible roots from the trees, we looked under the decomposing leaves on the ground and found worms and other bugs. Even though we weren't in the rain forest I think seeing some similarities to what we had been learning helped to make us feel more connected to the rainforest.  

Another experiment that we have set up in the school area this week was the sprout experiment. This had us cutting a potato in half and putting it in some water so we can watch it sprout. 


This experiment included an observation sheet that has room for us to draw a picture of any changes over the next several weeks. So we have two different projects right now to observe and get excited about.


*Mother Goose Time has generously provided this curriculum to us in exchange for our stories and honest opinions*









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