The Enormous Bok Choy!

During October and November we read many variations on the classic Russian folktale, The Giant Turnip . Our  latest story was The Enormous Potato.   In all of these stories the farmer is contending with a very large vegetable.   He tries to pull it out of the ground, but he is unable to do it by himself.  He calls his wife, daughter, dog, cat, and other animals to help. They all pull, tug, heave and yank and with their combined strength the vegetable pops out of the ground. This story helps young children understand the importance of working together for a common goal.  We reviewed the story on Tuesday because Heidi had a giant bok choy that was ready to be removed because it had  gone to seed.   We took the children to the gan and showed them the enormous bok choy. How were we going to get it out of the ground??

As the characters in the book, we were going to work together to pull out the bok choy. When we asked the children how we should do this, they made a line and held on to each other like a giant chain and pulled!

Yeah! The giant bok choy is out!

We worked together and are proud of our success! The Enormous Potato ended, but the story of the Enormous Bok Choy continues.

On Thursday, Heidi taught the children about seeds and what they need to grow.  After the lesson, the children worked in pairs to do some planting with her. She gave the children magnifying glasses and told them to explore for seeds in the garden. As they explored, they found another enormous bok choy growing near the sidewalk. The children were ready to pull it out, but we asked them to tell us how it was different from the one we pulled from the ground on Tuesday. This one didn't have the tall stem with the seed pods.  They also wanted to know why it was growing by the sidewalk instead of in the soil. We reviewed what Heidi had taught them about birds and animals carrying seeds and dropping them as they traveled.

Jack, Charlie, Jonah, Laura, Sophia, and Anna are planting seeds with Heidi.

Charlie and Sammie enjoyed finding things in the garden with their magnifying glasses.

Charlie found a pod full of seeds that he shows to Matthew and Lukas.

Wow! Exploring and learning together is so much fun!

After all the exploring in the gan, Heidi gave us a bok choy stem with several pods. As each child cut the pods and examined the seeds, we recorded their observations.  After cutting several pods, Charlie said" I looked every where for the seeds, they were hard to find because they are so tiny." Lukas said, " I found the bok choy seed and it is very little."

Laura said," Birds and animals can carry the bok choy seeds to other places." Max said, "You have to push the green part very hard to get the seed out."

Anna said, " The pods feel bumpy because there are lots of seeds inside." James David said," The bok choy seeds look like cucumber seeds."

Sophia said," The juice in the pod squirts."

Sammie said," The bok choy seeds are ugly because they are so white."  Matthew said, " I had to lift the pod and find the seeds with the tips of my fingers." 

Jack said," When you use the magnifying glass the seeds become bigger." Jonah said, " You have to peel and rip the pod to get to the seed."

Charlie said," If I scrape the pod, a little seed will come out." After examining the bok choy seeds, we all came to the same conclusion. The seeds may be tiny, but they grow enormous bok choy plants!