As part of our topic, ‘New year, new life’, the SK children have been learning about the seasons. They have been talking about how the trees and bushes that lose their leaves over the winter, especially in colder climates, begin to grow new leaves again and start to flower in spring. They have learnt that the temperature of the air and soil starts to warm up as the days get longer with the coming of spring. That’s why spring called the season of flowers.
The process of flowers opening up is part of a flowering plant’s life cycle. Blooming occurs when the petals in a bud start to grow to the point that they fill with enough water that the only place to go is out.
We found a ‘blooming marvellous’ science activity that showed us a simple explanation of how this happens.
We had fun making colourful paper flowers as you can see below. We used ordinary white paper, we coloured them with markers and enjoyed making them look as beautiful as possible. The SK children had a bit of help cutting them out and folding each petal into the centre of the flower. Then they got prepared by half filling a bowl with water and gently popping the flowers in. The children watched and waited for a short while and then they couldn’t believe their eyes………. We were all amazed as the petals opened and our flowers really did bloom!
How did that happen? Well we decided to share our idea with the Year 3 class as Ms. Mani was intrigued when we were photocopying the flowers ready to colour. We gave her some of the extra copies and off they went and found out why the flowers opened….. this is what Ms. Mani wrote about it.
Thank you to the Senior Kindergarten class for sharing your amazing Valentine’s Day flower idea with the Year 3. We had so much fun designing the flowers, wetting them and watching the magic happen…the flowers opened up!
How did that happen? The Year 3 put on their Science hats and soon came up with a theory. The paper ‘absorbed’ the water which resulted in the paper ‘expanding’ – making the paper flower open up. Science is sometimes so magical!
The faces of the SK children completing this activity show that they all agree with Year 3 that…
Science is sometimes so magical!
Please try this at home with your family as it is such a simple, science activity which really is lots of fun.