Tulip
Garden Update: April 15, 2005
Today's Report Includes:
- This Week's Map
- Gardening Woes to Share
- Don't Come Closer! How Plants Protect their own Space
- Building Students Vocabulary with Journey North
- Journal Entries Give Bud to Creative Writers
- Try This! Challenge Question #9
- Make Your Own: Tulip Models
- Teacher Tips: Mapping the Wave of Spring
- Students Challenge YOU! Discussion of CQ #8
This Week's Map and Data
For the first time this season the number of gardens reporting Blooming outnumbered the gardens reporting Emerged! Significantly warmer than average temperatures in the Heartland and New England are reflected in today's map and data. What’s happening in your garden? Are your tulips still under snow? Take a look at today’s tulip garden map.
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 |
Today's
tulip garden map: 04/15/05 |
Temperature
departure from average for week of April 3-9, 2005 |
- Tulips Emerged
- Tulips Bloomed
Data in printer-friendly format: - Bloomed
- Emerged
Gardening Woes to Share
Got critters? You are not alone!
At Perry Elementary in the heart of Boston, students were perplexed when they discovered that all the leaves had been eaten off their plants. The students did report, "Well, we did see squirrels in the garden. What's interesting now is that the flower buds are showing, and there are no leaves!"
No flowers?
In Kingwood, TX, Jo Leland reports, "The kids were able to share information about their home gardens, but (at school) in 200 bulbs planted we did not get a single bloom." Their bulbs were stored for a month in the garage before planting and suffered from fungus and heat.
Advice from 6 feet under in Soldotna, Alaska: "Always ask the custodian!"
Reporting from Redoubt Elementary, teacher Sara Hepner writes about their garden woes. “I'm now in my 11th (?) year of planting tulips, and transferred to a different school (in Soldotna) so there was no tulip garden plot ready to go. The plot was prepared, the bulbs were planted and it snowed the same weekend. I pointed out the boundaries of our plot to the custodian, who then replied, That's exactly where the plows will pile the snow from the parking lot. And indeed, our tulip bed is still under about six feet of snow left over from the mountain it used to be! So the moral of the story is: Always ask the custodian!”
Don't Come Closer! How Plants Protect their own Space
| Allelopathy:
the
suppression of growth of one plant species by another due to the
release of toxic substances |
| Other Vocabulary:
|
What's
that? Allelopathy is defined as, "the suppression of growth of one
plant species by another due to the release of toxic substances."
Find out more and try some experiments to test plants in your neighborhood
for these toxic substances.
Try This! Visit:
Building Student Vocabulary with Journey North
Vocabulary is essential to comprehension. Students need to apply strategies before, during, and after reading to understand texts. Journey North provides a wealth of informational texts to help students learn about words in meaningful contexts. Use the following ideas to help students build and extend vocabulary skills during your Journey North studies:
Try inviting students
to collect words from the Allelopathy text (above), and
the context-rich sentence(s) in which the words were found. Have students
find definitions using dictionaries and other reference materials.
Or try:
Journal Entries Give Bud to Creative Writers
Sometimes sighting reports can be the springboard to creativity. Third Graders at Mound Elementary School in Miamisburg, OH sent such a detailed report we feel they brought us along for the tour of their tulips!
Here’s what they reported:
Our tulips are blooming and they are very pretty!
The first tulip to bloom was Connor's.
The inside is yellow, purple, and black.
Lexi's was the smallest tulip.
The tallest one was Connor's at 37cm tall.
Two died because something ate the buds off.
Elizabeth's was only 3 cm smaller than Connor's.
3 haven't bloomed.
We hope the rain doesn't destroy them.
Spring has sprung!
It almost
sounds like poetry, doesn't it?
Try This!
Go outside with your journals and take a tour of your tulip garden. Once
you are out in the garden try making a quiet zone all around the garden
space. Use your senses to define some of the things you see, smell, hear
and feel.
When you return to the classroom take some time to share your journal
entries. Make a list of them on the board.
Next, try your hand at creating some simple cinquain (SIN cane) poetry!
Challenge Question #9:
"Can you turn your journal entries into poetry? Maybe your tulips are blooming, or emerging, or maybe they are still covered with snow. Can you creatively share the garden in a poem?" (Send some of your poetry to Journey North.)
(To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.)
Make Your Own: Tulip Models
 |
| Tulips
made by students at Irwin Math/Science Magnet Elementary School
in Fort Wayne, IN |
Celebrate
springtime in your classroom as your tulip gardens signal its arrival.
Try this fun, creative project from students at Irwin Math/Science Magnet
Elementary School in Fort Wayne, IN.
Create a model of the entire tulip plant. Materials should be easily available.
Use a small balloon for the bulb, shredded packing material - the roots
(taped to the bulb), straws - the stem, green paper - leaves, yellow pipe
cleaners - anthers and stigmas, and finally, red paper folded into an
Origami paper cup for the flower.
Irwin students wanted to share this fun project with all the rest of the Journey North Tulip Study participants. Thank You!
- Here's How: Making Blooming Tulips in the Classroom
Teacher Tips: Mapping the Wave of Spring
Sara Hepner works with small groups of kids in the gifted program. In the pictures below, 4th graders are updating a big map that is placed in the hall (often classes stop by on their way to music or the gym). In addition to the big map, the fourth graders also keep track of progress on individual maps in their 'tulip journals' by marking the approximate location of the cities.
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 |
 |
| Mapping
Spring's arrival while waiting for their tulips to emerge in Soldonta,
Alaska |
||
Primary kids track just the states in which tulips have emerged and then bloomed, so it's always exciting when new states log in.
Sara writes, "We keep a list predicting which states will be announcing the arrival of tulips the next week. Sometimes our predictions are even based on weather maps and geographical data."
Students Challenge YOU! Discussion of CQ #8
|
Tulips
from Gayle Kloewer's Class Garden |
 |
|
This
year's tulips emerging. |
 |
|
The
same day looking at last year's tulips emerging. Which came up first? |
Generally, old bulbs, or bulbs that have been in the ground more than one season tend to have a more established root system. It is possible that the bulbs can work their way up closer to the soil surface, and therefore may not be as deep as the newly planted bulbs, thus warming up faster and emerging earlier.
Try an experiment for yourself. Dig up some old and new bulbs and carefully measure the distance from the surface to the base of each group of bulbs. What do you find?
Here are some of your thoughts:
- Kaylah wrote, "I believe that the older tulips bloom earlier because they are used to the ground. They are used to all of the climate changes and such maybe."
- Carley
thoughtfully answered, "The tulips emerge earlier because
they've been there longer and it would take less time for them to grow."
How to Respond to Today's Challenge Questions:
IMPORTANT: Answer only ONE question in each e-mail message.
1. Address
an e-mail message to: jn-challenge-tulip@learner.org
2. In the Subject Line of your message write: Challenge
Question #8.
3. In the body of EACH message, give your answer to ONE of the questions
above.
The Next Tulip Garden Update Will Be Posted on April 22, 2005.
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