Botanical Gardens

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     The pictures below and the one above come from a visit to the botanical Gardens in Cleveland.  We did a writing project, activities involving categorizing plants and animals, and a project involving sequencing when we returned to school.  A good time was had by all.

We started off with a brief informational session about the parts of plants and and what plants require to grow and stay healthy.

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All of the students got to utilize what they learned in the other room to put together a small terrarium made with a used/recycled pop bottle.  They had to stratify the different kinds soil, add a small plant with roots oriented in the proper direction and add a small bit of water.

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Adding/spraying some water.

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Taking some notes.

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Wandering through the green house that represented the lush rain forests of Costa Rica.  The display board in the background had information about the metamorphosis of various butterflies and moths that hatched and lived in this section of the botanical gardens.

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One of the inhabitants of the Costa Rican rain forest.

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Walking under the waterfall was a favorite for everybody.

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The students had two worksheets that were intended to reinforce new vocabulary words learned that day and they were to write down three questioning sentences for future research or discussion.

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More note taking and answering of questions.

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The Botanical Gardens are a great place to extend and enrich learning! Plus it's just fun to wander around.

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The Botanical Gardens has library which contains all manner of books, maps, charts and information relating to the botanical world.  We finished up our trip there for some light research and just to look at some books.

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It's always nice when parents can come along!

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I'd like to think they are working on answering some the questions on the clipboard, but maybe they are just discussing a book.

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Josh seems to be pondering hard upon some sort of thorny botanical dilemma.

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Sometimes there is no objective...she just reading a book.

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Reading and discussing a book they've found-nothing could make me happier.

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The library had a couple of nice, comfy, rocking chairs.  All the nicer to make the reading more enjoyable.

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We visited a rain forest and now Ji is reading a book about a rain forest Perfect!

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Heading back out, it was a great trip and the students had some fun and we all got out of the building for a bit.  I think most students got a few new concepts and vocabulary words out of the experience also.