Gone to Seed

Another wonderful day at homeschool. Today’s theme was really fun: we learned all about winter weeds and seeds. We started the day with a Hitchcock favorite: lizard tails. Everyone has a tail, and everyone is trying to grab everyone else’s tail. I think most of us could have played all day!

We came inside and began morning circle with the spiderweb greeting. Each child has a turn to greet someone across the circle, tossing them a ball of yarn in the process. At the end, we had a beautiful spiderweb.

We shared our home projects about corn. A few people had some corny jokes to share, and others told us about surprising foods with corn ingredients in them (spinach artichoke dip!?). 

Then we read the schedule and morning message. Today’s theme is “Gone to Seed” and the password is “samara.” Before I gave away the definition of samara, I handed one to each student, letting them play with it. They recognized them as the helicopter seeds from maple trees, and played with them, making them twirl to the ground. Turns out those seeds with wings have a name: samara.

 
We read a book called “Seeds Get Around” and discussed the different ways seeds travel: floating like a coconut, blowing in the wind like a milkweed seed, hitching a ride like burdock, fluttering to the ground like a maple samara. Then in partners kids were given a seed to investigate and figure out how it traveled. We made a chart with our guesses of what the seeds were and how they travel.
  
After a quick snack, it was time for our outdoor adventure. We put fuzzy socks on our shoes to see what hitchhikers we could pick up, and set off around the Hitchcock yard on a seed scavenger hunt. At the same time, kids were collecting as many different seeds as they could find. Our first goal was 12 different kinds, enough to fill one egg carton. But by the time we finished our scavenger hunts, we needed three egg cartons! 

We didn’t find too many hitchhikers on our socks, but maybe they were just too small to see. So we began an experiment, putting the socks in a bucket with some soil to see if anything would sprout. Great idea, Carole!

Then we set off on the trails to collect more seeds and also, our favorite winter weed for a class field guide. The rain held off for us as we ran through the woods, looking at interesting plants and insects!   

Penelope spotted this insect, which Ted later identified as a blister beetle. We all thought it looked like a cross between an ant and a bee (which are the same family) but it turns out it is a beetle (totally different family!). They are called blister beetles because they excrete a liquid that gives our skin blisters if we touch it!  Whoa.

We had lunch when we came back, and then got to work on our project: a class field guide of winter weeds. Using the weeds we had collected, we made pages of our guide. We named the weeds whatever we wanted! I will assemble the book this week for display at our next class.
 

Afterwards, we had another project. Remembering the different ways seeds travel, each child was given a bean and they had to come up with a design to make their seed travel. Kids were very creative! Some seeds floated, some were helicopters, some were both! 

When our seeds were completed, we came to the circle for journal time. There was a lot to do: glue in photos, plants and scavenger hunts, and write the date, daily theme and password.

 

Soon it was time for closing circle. We said our favorite parts of the day, and after I couldn't resist showing them a seed parachute I read about. We watched it fly, and then ran to the tables to make our own!

See you next time!

Corn: The "A-maize-ing" Grain

It was so good to see the homeschoolers again after an unexpected two-week break!  Last week’s October snowstorm caused some damage at the Hitchcock Center, causing us to cancel class for a week. We picked up where we left off today, learning all about corn, the “a-maizing” grain. We started the day by playing a game called Blob Tag with the older homeschoolers. It was awesome! 

When we came inside we started morning circle with “Silent Greeting”, which is all about eye contact. The person doing the greeting finds a person across the circle, meets their eyes, and does a motion. That person greets them by doing the motion back. It was tricky, but we did it (almost) silently!

We read the daily schedule and then shared home projects. Teresa brought in an interesting curcubit: a warty gourd that was hollow, but made a sound when shaken. We speculated that it was hollow because it had dried out, but that the seeds were still inside making the sound. Another home project was to be eaten: pumpkin chocolate cookies from Xav. Yum!

Next we read the morning message, which introduced today’s theme, corn, and password. The password was “cereal” – and not the cereal you eat for breakfast. We discussed how cereal crops are important grains that feed people, such as corn, wheat, oats, and rye. We also mentioned how in England, “corn” means wheat, in Scotland, “corn” means oats, and in America, “corn” means maize! Wow. Corn has been important in the United States for thousands of years. Unlike apples, corn has been here for a long time, and Native Americans used it in many different ways.

Then it was time to meet our special guest for the day, Maizie the corn snake. We talked about how her habitat is a field, or cornfield and that’s why she is a corn snake. Also, the patterns on her belly look like Indian corn. Homeschoolers had a chance to hold her and look closely at the patterns on her body, which came in handy for our craft later. Maizie is always a huge hit!

We had a snack of toasted corn snacks and then it was off to Bramble Hill Farm to meet Farmer Hans. It was sunny and warm as we made our way up the hill. John found a garter snake along the way.

We met Hans at McGregor’s Garden and he showed us the popcorn corn stalks that were still standing. Kids looked for ears of corn still on the stalk and found a few. The corn kernels were supposed to be small and a deep maroon color, but some were cross-pollinated with a different variety of corn a long way off, and so they were bigger and redder. 

Hans discussed how Native Americans used the “three sisters”: beans, corn, and squash many years ago. The corn provided a tall, strong stalk for the beans to grow. The beans were nitrogen fixers, making the soil fertile. And the squash grew large leaves over the soil, keeping it moist. Hans had some beans growing with the corn and so we picked some for shelling. 

Next Hans needed our help pulling the corn stalks out of the ground. So we pulled them up and hauled them to the compost pile. It was fun.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Hans, so we headed back down the hill, checking for cattails, frogs and other goodies on the way. John spotted a praying mantis egg sac!

At lunch we noticed how many people were “eating” our passwords from homeschool. Everyone was eating some kind of cereal grain, such as wheat, corn, and oats. Many of us had apples (pomology), and other foods that were harvested, and grew with leaves containing chlorophyll.      

After lunch we began our craft: making our own corn snakes! Using Abenaki corn grown by Hans, homeschoolers created patterns with kernels on their very own corn snakes. Some of us used the beans Hans gave us for shelling.

At journal time we wrote about corn and glued some kernels and art into our journals. Some kids described the decomposition of our pumpkin from two weeks ago. (Look - some seeds sprouted!)

 Then we read Weslandia, about a boy who creates his own civilization based on one important crop he calls “swist”. Then we ate popcorn from a cob, popped in an air popper. Delicious!