Ground Cherries

I guess today was all about plants, or the afternoon at least.  After school a parent asked if I would eat ground cherries... Never heard of them, said I.  A guy from church keeps giving her family bags and bags of them since he knows their family likes them.  She's already made jam and pies and still has some to go!  She'd brought a whole bag along (hoping to get rid of them at school), so she gave me one to try.  Not too bad.  Kind of like an extra sweet tomato?  Anyway, I ended up with a bag of them, so maybe I'll bake a pie or something this weekend.  Or search Pinterest for recipes! So far, Pinterest has never let me down!


We only had two more Native American powerpoints to go, and one boy was quite far from having his done, so to fill the time between their presentation and PE we talked about tropisms in plants.  Geotropism= roots grow down, leaves grow up. Phototropism= plants grow toward light. Hydrotropism= plants grow toward water.  Thigmatropism= some plants respond to touch. They all intrigued my students, but thigmatropism most of all.  In this category we have the venus flytraps and sensitive plants (mimosa pudica).  I showed a video of the latter and right away they wanted to know if we could get one.  So while they were at PE I called around to some local garden centers and discovered that yes, they do carry sensitive plant seeds and can get venus flytraps in for relatively cheap.  I guess that means we're getting some.  It's kind of the wrong time to grow the sensitive plants because they like weather over 70 degrees.  Our classroom is usually at 68 in the winter, 65 over night, and 60 on weekends.  But maybe it's warmer in/near Joe's tank.  Hmm. He might become nursemaid to some plants!


We ended up cancelling volleyball practice today.  Four girls are at volleyball camp at Nicollet and one of the bigger girls injured her foot yesterday at soccer.  Plus neither Lori nor I wanted to do practice.  So my afternoon opened up a bit!  In a while Mrs. E and I are going to Mankato for supper and then an arm knitting class.  I've always wanted to try arm knitting (I saw it on pinterest... and my sister Eileen made me an arm-knitted scarf for Christmas one year), so when Mrs. E asked if anyone wanted to do it with her, I volunteered!