How the World Works – Cycle & Changes…

One afternoon, Mrs. Zurfluh showed students a picture of a bicycle wheel and asked: “What do you notice about the picture?”

At first they noticed that it was a tire, a wheel, it was round and had lines (spokes) on it. “It was a circle. It had two circles on it.” After some discussion they decided that it went  around and around. This brought us on to the idea of a ‘Cycle’ – something that happens over and over.

Mrs. Zurfluh asked: “Knowing that cycle is something that repeat again and again. Can you think of anything in our environment or life that we can call it a cycle?”

Tomazs: “It’s like a clock. It goes around and around.”
Ada Amie: ” The flowers grow and grow, then they die, and then grow again, and never stop. And that is a cycle.”
Tim: “The earth goes around and around, and don’t stop.”
Altai: “Day and night. We get up in the morning and go to sleep at night.”
Veronika: “I don’t know how to say in English. (Then she said it in Russian. Another friend tried to translate for her) “It was like the days and months.” The days changing – Seasons!
Altai: “People too. Start with babies, they grow, and grow, and become old and die. And start all over again.”
Tim: “Same as the turtles. They lay eggs, they hatch, and then they grow and lay more eggs.”
Ada: “The Sun. It comes out in the morning and goes down at night.”
Altai: “The trees get older and older and bigger and bigger. They cut them down. And then new tress grow.”

The students all agreed that our schedule is a cycle as well.

After our discussion on cycle. We continued our learning on seasons. We went on a forest walk to observe and explore our environment. Stay tune for more of our learning stories…