Educating Young Children Volume 1 – Spring 2025 | Page 33

their study of the plant. In the process, they exhibited a skill aligned with one of our state’ s math standards:

“ Children begin to demonstrate an understanding of numbers and counting.”

During a different choice time, Liza and I observed as Eric and Tina collaborated on another discovery, one that would help us update the activity. As Eric counted the seeds, he said to Tina,“ Look, not all the seeds are the same. Let’ s put the striped seeds in this pile and the dark, black seeds in another.” Liza placed two containers at the workstation as they separated the black seeds from the striped ones. Liza and I saw that the children were capable of sorting based on an object’ s attributes. We kept the containers at the table so that the other children could try. By watching and listening, Liza and I saw Eric and Tina take in new information and connect it with what they had previously learned from other contexts and content-area experiences.( See“ Imagination and Learning During Individual Play.”)

Once the children had thoroughly made use of the different parts of the sunflower head to dissect, count, paint, and so on, it was time to return to one of the questions they had upon first seeing it: How would the seeds grow into a sunflower? Liza and I planned a seed-planting activity. Along with the children, we wrapped the seeds in wet paper towels and placed them in quartsize plastic bags. Then we hung the bags on the window. As the sun warmed these miniature hot houses, the seeds began to sprout roots, stems, and baby leaves.