Garden Days!

It has been so wonderful starting a new year of Garden Class! The Stanford Trees couldn't believe how much the garden had changed since last season, exclaiming that it looked like a brand new place! The wisteria is growing fast, making our outdoor classroom feel like a whole different world!

Last week, we had our first week of exploring in the garden, hunting for living things with our five senses.

Today, we had our second week of Garden Class, and each student got to plant their own plant in their very own pot, which they also got to paint! It was an eventful class!

Our gardeners were so artistic as they each decorated their plant's home.
While their art dried, we snooped the garden to find bees in action! We saw both honeybees and bumble bees pollinating flowers in the garden. We learned that bumblebees don't sting!


After our bee search, we came back to transplant our plants into their new homes.



Students then created their own book about their plant, counting the leaves, measuring its height, and making a prediction about how it would look when it reached full-growth. We can't wait to keep track each week!


These two superstars were highlighted as being super engaged, and participating actively during garden. They got the "Harvest Card," and got to harvest and enjoy THREE vegetables from the garden! They chose broccoli, snap peas, and mint to munch on in the garden. Congratulations, Jorge and Raul!

We Are Bee-ologists!

Spring has sprung & the Stanford Trees are embarking on our bee-unit!!!

We have some serious bee experts on our hands, only mid-way through our first week of learning about bees!

So far, we have learned about the parts of the bee and each created our own bees that are now flying in our classroom library!

We have learned that like all insects, bees have three body parts: head,

thorax and abdomen. They have six legs, two antenna, and a stinger.

Stanford Trees are amazed that:

"Worker bees have a curved stinger, so their insides come out when they sting, and that's why they die after they sting someone!" --Jorge

"The worker bees do all the work, while the queen bee lays the eggs and the drone bees look for the queen bee to mate!" --Vanessa

"When bees go to find honey, to find their way back to their home they just follow the sun." --Yazil

"Different types of bees come from different places. The bees in the U.S. came from Europe!" --Rhonicia

"Queen bees can sting over and over again!" --Jesus

"If a new queen bee comes into a hive, the OLD queen bee must leave with honey in her belly and half the bees to start a new colony!" --Adrian

We have been working so hard to study bees in real expository books, and listening closely to the main idea in each section, and the details that support the main idea. We are keeping track of all we learn in our very own Beeologist Journals!