Every year I tell myself to get started on our plant unit earlier in the year. That way I can easily find specimens outside. It didn't happen again this year.
Today we studied the non-vascular plants, ferns and mosses. Fortunately, I saved a hunk of moss from our last school forest visit in November. It has been in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for nearly 2 months, and it still looked good. The kids learned about how moss takes water directly into its cells instead of using tubes and roots like most plants do. They spent some time looking at the moss with magnifiers and microscopes and then did some observational drawing.
Believe it or not, the ferns we used today came from a funeral arrangement. Usually I have to visit all the florists in our area to try and find some ferns that have spore cases on the backs of their fronds. Unfortunately, I had to go to a funeral last week. At the burial service we were all invited to take a flower from the casket bouquet. When it was my turn, I noticed the ferns amongst the flowers had spore cases on the back. I eagerly plucked out a few ferns instead. The dearly departed was a very practical guy and he would have appreciated the fact I was putting them to good use.
We popped open the fern spore cases and took a closer look under microscopes. The kids were amazed to see the spores looked like shiny, brown bowling balls.
Next week we start our seed plant unit. And I most certainly hope I will get my flowers from a florist, not a funeral.
