Exploring Plants and Flowers

We have been talking about plants in science the past few weeks. We have been observing different types of seeds, roots, flowers. Last week, each child got to plant a bean seed and some winter rye seeds. It didn't take long for the winter rye to begin growing in our cups, but the bean seeds took a little longer.
This week, we did a experiments with plants. We put food coloring and water in a few containers and placed some white flowers, and roses in the containers. We also did the same thing with stalks of celery. After just a few hours, the colored water began to travel up tiny tubes in the stem of the white flowers and pink roses, and the petals began to change colors before our eyes. The same thing happened to our stalks of celery. We decided to split one of the celery stalks and put half of it in blue water, and the other half in red water. The colored water traveled up the celery, changing the inside color, as well.
A nearby florist was so kind to donate a variety of spring flowers for our class to observe. We set up different flowers at each table with magnifying glasses, and students were asked to describe the texture, color, smell of each of the flowers. Also, we opened up some of the flowers for them to observe the inside parts of the flowers. I think we are all ready for SPRING now.