December 5-9, 2016
Meet Your Squash Farmer!
Squash farmer Kelli came for a visit this week in Nutrition Expedition! We learned all about squash seeds and how they grow into plants, eventually yielding a beautiful crop of squash "babies" (see last week's blog entry 😉).
Farmer Kelli showed the children a series of photos depicting the growth cycle of a butternut squash plant, starting from seed stage through harvest stage. We explored vials of spaghetti squash seeds, left-over from our observations last week, as well as fresh spaghetti squash "guts" and seeds (Ms. Kathy made us spaghetti squash for lunch on Tuesday). Farmer Kelli read the story It's Pumpkin Time, by Zoe Hall, which describes the process of growing pumpkins.
We also watched a cool time-lapse video of a squash plant growing. The kids thought this was awesome:
Super Sleuth Questions
1. What is the first thing you need in order to grow a squash? (answer: a seed)
2. After you plant the seed in the soil, what do you need to give it? (answer: water and sunshine)
3. What grows on the plant that is the beginning of the squash? (answer: a flower)
4. When the flower, or squash blossom, falls off, what will be in its place? (answer: a baby squash)
