Child and Parent Expertise

The children looked closely at the potato the teacher passed around the group. Cody ran his fingers over the smooth skin, "This one's sort of brown and a bit red." He passed the potato carefully to Kimi who put her fingers into each of the little dips where the shoots will start to grow. "What are these?" "Those little dips are called eyes," said Mrs Martin, the teacher, "and if you look closely you can see what looks like an eyebrow!" "We get our potatoes from the bean store," said Ishi. "My Grandma has a whole field of potatoes on her farm and we get to help dig some and we get all covered in dirt!" laughed Erin. Rudi said, "My Mom grows them in our back yard and she says they're nearly ready to dig now."

This conversation took place in a preschool class and led to a phone call by the teacher to Rudi's Mom who was delighted to have the class come to help dig potatoes in her back yard a couple of days later. The children found all kinds of potatoes, large ones, small ones, and some very tiny ones still attached to the fragile roots. Some very funny shaped ones made them laugh. As they dug in the earth they found small creatures, worms, beetles and a centipede, which they collected in jars and took back to school to put in a vivarium.

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