"Keep your face to the sunshine...that's what sunflowers do"

Over the last week, we have learned so much more about sunflowers and how they grow! On Tuesday, one friend brought in a HUGE sunflower that had been growing in her family's garden--its center was 8 inches in diameter! (we learned that a diameter is a straight line going across the center of a circle). We loved being able to take a closer look at the center and seeing where the seeds grow:

We also worked together to make three big sunflowers for our classroom. To make the petals, we traced our hands onto construction paper and cut them out (as for the leaves on the stems? Those were made by tracing Ms. Riley's feet!)

As we continue to learn about sunflowers and plants, we are going to add the facts we learn on index cards around our sunny stocks!

On Thursday, after we learned that sunflower roots can grow up to 9 feet deep into the ground, we practiced using crayon resist to paint sunflowers and their roots. Everyone's paintings looked beautiful, we can't wait to hang them up in the hallway for all of SMS to admire!

Towards the end of the week, we looked at pictures of the tallest sunflower in the world. We could not believe how big it was, it is definitely worth checking out! We also watched The Magic School Bus Gets Planted, and we learned that plants need air, water, and sunlight to make their own food. The food they make is a sugar that the plant then uses to grow. Watching this video got us thinking about the food the plants produce, so we are going to explore that a bit more next week.

We aren't the only classroom learning about sunflowers!! On September 23rd, the entire second grade is going to participate in Sunflower Day, and we are going to share all that we've learned with one another as we travel from classroom to classroom to take part in different sunflower stations. We can't wait!