During the winter, we do a lot of things during project that somehow relate to the farm, plants, fruits, or vegetables. Today we started a big unit on the parts of a plant. We will make models of different types of plants, and the models will show all the parts of those particular plants.
Today we read two books - one was on roots and one was on stems. After that we attempted to make the stem part of the models.
First, the cons of project: We tried to use papier mâché to make the stems. It was kind of a disaster. The balloons were super hard to blow up (even for the adults) and they were hard to put together to make them look how the kids wanted. Some balloons popped, some kept twisting apart. In the end, nobody got enough accomplished to even resemble a stem! It was at least moderately enjoyable for most of the kids, though, and that was good.
Next, the pros: to show the kids different kinds of roots and stems we can eat, I brought in some unfamiliar foods for the kids to try. The roots they tried were jicama and daikon radish. The stems were fennel and asparagus. The kids overwhelmingly liked the jicama, daikon, and fennel. It's hard to keep asparagus a good texture when it was cooked the night before, but the kids tried it!
Even though project today was kind of frustrating, and not much product came from it, the kids still worked hard and persevered. They worked well together and they learned, at the very least, how difficult it is to work with long, skinny balloons!
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