Ages 6–8 · 8 little discoveries
Tosbi’s Nature Notebook
Eight discoveries about plant and animal life cycles, seeing and guessing, weather and seasons, the cycle of the year, a food chain, animal homes and a fair plant test.
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A plant’s life cycle
Put the stages of a bean plant in order, from the seed to the pods with new seeds, and show that a new seed starts the cycle again.
Tosbi is watching one bean plant. It starts as a seed. In damp soil the seed sprouts: a root grows down and a shoot grows up.
The shoot grows leaves and becomes a seedling. Later the plant opens flowers. A flower can turn into a pod, and the pods hold new bean seeds.
Be careful, the order matters. Flowers cannot open before the plant has roots and leaves. Seed, flowers, seedling is the wrong order.
A new seed from a pod can grow into a new plant, so the cycle goes round. Now you try: say each stage and ask what comes next. After the pods, what comes again?
An animal’s life cycle
Put the stages of a butterfly and of a frog in order, from the egg to the grown-up, and show that the grown-up lays the eggs for the cycle to go round.
A butterfly starts as a tiny egg on a leaf. A caterpillar hatches from the egg. It eats leaves and grows and grows.
Then the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis. Inside, its body changes. A butterfly comes out and lays new eggs. So the cycle goes round.
A frog has a cycle too: eggs, tadpole, froglet, frog. A tadpole lives in water. It has a tail and no legs at first. A froglet has legs and a short tail.
Careful: a caterpillar is not a small butterfly, and a tadpole is not a small frog. They are stages that look very different. Now you try: start at an egg and say what comes next.
Observation or guess?
Tell what we see, hear or feel now, an observation, from what we think will happen later, a guess, and check a guess by looking again.
Tosbi looks at a bean in a pot. The soil is dark and damp. Two green leaves are open. Tosbi can see this now. What we see, hear or feel now is an observation.
Then Tosbi thinks: “The plant will grow taller.” Nobody has seen that yet. It is a guess. A guess tells what we think will happen later.
Careful: “It will rain tomorrow” is a guess, even when the clouds are dark. Nobody can see tomorrow yet. Words like will, maybe and I think often show a guess.
A guess can turn out right or wrong. Tosbi checks it by looking again later. The plan: look, guess, look again. Now you try!
Weather or season?
Tell the weather, which can change in a day, from the season, which lasts about three months, and say why one day’s weather does not change the season.
Weather is what it is like outside today. It can be sunny, rainy, cloudy or windy. Weather can change in one day, even in one hour.
A season is a long part of the year, about three months. The year has four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. The wheel shows the whole year. Each season has its usual weather, but not every day is the same.
In Turkey, winter is December, January and February. Careful: one warm, sunny day in winter does not make it summer. The weather changes for a day, but the season is still winter.
Now you try. Ask yourself: can this change in one day? Then it is weather. Does it last for months? Then it is a season.
Months and seasons go round
Continue the cycle of months and seasons from any starting point, knowing that after December comes January and after winter comes spring.
A year has twelve months: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. After December comes January again. The year goes round like a wheel.
Every season has three months. In Turkey, spring is March, April and May. Summer is June, July and August. Autumn is September, October and November. Winter is December, January and February.
Careful: winter starts in December and goes on through January and February. The list of months ends at December, but the year does not stop. January comes again. After winter the wheel turns to spring.
Now you try. Start anywhere on the wheel and go round. After autumn comes winter, and after winter comes spring. Which season is next?
A food chain
Build a food chain of three links that starts with a plant, and tell plant eaters from animal eaters.
Every animal needs food. Green plants make their own food using sunlight. Grass is a plant. A rabbit cannot make its own food, so it eats grass.
A fox eats rabbits. So food passes from the grass to the rabbit to the fox. This is a food chain. The rabbit eats plants: it is a plant eater. The fox eats animals: it is a meat eater.
Careful: a food chain does not start with an animal. A fox cannot make its own food, so fox, rabbit, grass is the wrong way round. A chain always starts with a plant.
Now you try. A mouse eats seeds, and an owl catches the mouse. What is the chain? Start with the plant: seeds, mouse, and who comes last?
A home that fits
Match animals to the place that gives them what they need: food, water and shelter.
A habitat is the place where an animal finds food, water and shelter. A frog needs water for its eggs, so it lives by a pond. A duck swims on the pond and finds food there.
A squirrel climbs trees to find nuts and acorns, and it sleeps in a nest in a tree. An owl hunts at night and rests in a tree hole. For both, the forest is their habitat.
A seal and a sea turtle swim in the sea, where they find their food. A seal would not find fish in a forest, so a forest is not its home. A good habitat gives an animal what it needs.
Cows, sheep and horses graze in meadows. Now you try: first ask what the animal needs, then find the place that gives it.
A fair plant test
Choose the plant test where only one thing is different, and name what stays the same.
Tosbi asks: does a bean seedling need light? Tosbi compares two seedlings. One sits by a window and the other in a dark cupboard. The light is the only thing that is different.
Everything else stays the same: the same kind of seedling, the same pot size, the same soil and the same amount of water. This is a fair test. After some days Tosbi looks at both plants.
Now a test that is not fair. One plant is in a big pot with a lot of water, in the light. The other is in a small pot with a little water, in the dark. Three things are different, so we cannot tell why the plants look different.
Now you try. Look at the two plants and count what is different. If only one thing is different, the test is fair.