Baby Plants + Baby Clams

We planted the first seeds of our classroom garden today. Rachael worked with a group of children to prepare a bed by lining a wooden box with plastic, and collecting rocks to place in the bed for drainage. It took a lot of work to collect enough rocks, but they did it. They then carefully filed the bed with potting soil, spread lots of chia seeds, buried them, and watered them. 
 
Lou Lou: We don’t need more water. It will drown today. It will drown right now.
Leigh: I think it’s gonna grow a big huge flower.
Lou Lou: Yeah, bigger and bigger.

Back in the classroom during morning meeting, Margaret shared her collection of baby clam shells in morning meeting. As she passed them out for everyone to hold and examine, we asked questions and shared ideas:
Rachael: Where did you find them?
Margaret: They came from Bolton Island, from the beach.
Rachael: Why did you collect them?
Margaret: I wanted the baby clams because I want to share them. I wanted to show all these to my sisters. 
Rachael: Did you see big ones too?
Margaret: Yeah, here’s a big one.
Rachael: Why are some closed and some open?
Margaret Because water buried them. The ones that were buried are closed. Sand and water buried them.
Rachael: What’s inside the shells?
Sally: You hear the water inside it. It goes [whoosh].
Sam: It has a pink thing in it. 
Elle: And then clams, open shut, open shut. 
 
Later we spent some time investigating baby clams. Margaret and Sally carefully counted them and began to draw pictures. Then they were curious about what it looks like when baby clams open and shut, so we looked for videos. We saw lots of different types of clams in various shapes and sizes, and watched a few digging themselves into the sand. It was fascinating, but Margaret was pretty sure that her baby clams had never had a slimy protruding, tongue-like thing, and they certainly had never spit saltwater at anyone.