Ellyn continues to share her passion and knowledge of nature and wildlife with our students. In Children’s House, students learned all about spider anatomy and habits. They also got to see a giant (plastic) spider and drew their own spiders and webs. Lower Elementary students were introduced to Ellyn’s Timeline of Plants—a complimentary lesson to LE’s study of the Timeline of Life. Students discussed the important relationship between plants, animals, and habitat and learned which plants from today were also in existence hundreds of millions of years ago. They also sketched what they saw in their science notebooks.

All of these lessons prepare students for more complex work in Upper Elementary, including the study of the Vital Functions of Plants. In this unit, students identify the functions a plant needs to survive, and through a variety of presentations and experiments, they hone in on the intersections between each function.

The goal of these studies is for the children to understand the interdependence of all life forms and the role we all have in protecting and preserving life on Earth.