Week 3

 1. What did you learn this week?

This week we learned about a few different life cycles. We learned about the mealworm lifecycle, the butterfly lifecycle, plant lifecycles, and more. We also got to make physical lifecycles with play dough. We chose to make the butterfly lifecycle. The butterfly lifecycle has four different stages. The Egg stage, the caterpillar stage, the chrysalis stage, and the butterfly stage. 

Another thing we did this week was we started growing our own fast plants! The lifecycle of a fast plant is really short. Once you plant seeds, our plant will have harvestable seeds in about 40 days. That’s only a little over a month! The instructions for planting the fast plants was:

1. Drop one wick into each cell so that the tip extends about 2cm out of the hole of the bottom. 2. Fill each cell halfway with the potting mix. 3. Add 2-3 fertilizer pellets to each cell. 4. Fill each cell to the top with the potting mix. 5. Make a shallow depression on top of each cell. 6. Drop 2-3 seeds in each depression (although we accidentally put about 5 in each depression. Oops). 7. Sprinkle enough potting mix in each cell to cover the seeds. 

The photo below was our final outcome of planting the fast plants. 

We also checked on our lima beans and their growth. Ours did not do much in the last week. I think this is because they are in a red solo cup and not a clear cup, so not all sides get as much light. The photo below is how they looked after a week. 

2. Which parts did you find clear and which were confusing?

I found the butterfly cycle to be very clear. I already knew the lifecycle of the butterfly. One thing that still confuses me to this day with the lifecycle is the chrysalis. Science is so crazy to me because I just don’t understand how they are able to do that and them somehow come out as a butterfly. It almost seems like magic to me. 

3. How can you apply what you've learned to your teaching in the future?

Something that I can transfer into my future classroom would be the lifecycle play dough activity. I am a very hands-on type of person. This was very satisfying for me to make and I know that my future students would love to make something like this. And most kids love to play with play dough.