Sunday, September 30, 2012

Fun With Plants!

This post is a week or so overdue, but I figured I would share it anyway :) We learned all about plants, something I always love to teach! I love that it can easily be extended with apples and pumpkins!

I really like the way our science book teaches plants, and I was able to make a plant journal to accompany it! It would work for anyone, even if you did not have the same science series as we do :) You can pick up a copy for cheap HERE or by clicking the preview picture below: 
 
 
As we came to new vocabulary words in our books, we added them onto the leaves on our bulletin board:
 
 
 
Plant Experiment:
We started our plant unit by being scientists. We decided to do a little experiment to see which plant would grow the best {and to learn what plants need!} I bought a 6 pack Dianthus plants from Lowe's and cut them apart. {Be sure you pick a plant that needs lots of sun!}We gave Plant 1 only sun, Plant 2 only water {we kept it under a dark can}, and Plant 3 got sun AND water. The kids made predictions about which plant would grow best and why. The kids observed the plants everyday and wrote their observations in their plant journals {there is a section at the bottom of each page in the journal for observations!} Here is how our plants ended up after about a week and a half or so...
 
 
 
 
**Be sure if you do this experiment that you let the kids hold each plant! Plant 1 became SUPER light, and Plant 2 became SUPER heavy because of all the water :) It lead to a great discussion!**
 
Day 1:
We discussed our schema and what we want to know about plants. We also made experiment predictions.
 
Day 2:
We read about, discussed, drew and labeled what plants need.
 
Day 3:
We read about, discussed, drew and labeled the parts of a plant.
 
Day 4:
We read about, discussed, drew and labeled the life cycle of a plant.
 
Day 5:
We read about, discussed, and wrote about why plants are important in our lives.

Day 6:
Made these cute flowers to show 5 facts we learned about plants:
 
 
Last week we finished our Apple Week. We did pretty much the same things we did last year {no time to photograph or blog about it this year because of Parent/Teacher Conferences!} The next couple weeks we will work on our pumpkin unit! I am so excited!

3 comments:

  1. Cool beans! When I teach this unit I always refer to my students at Botanists! I use that word over and over to remind them of that vocabulary word. When they walk into science, I'll say, "welcome Botanists!" and they love it. When we study weather, I call them meteorologists. Anything to help them own the word and keep it in their memory!
    Patty
    Second In Line

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    Replies
    1. Love the terms botanist and meteorologist! I will definitely be using those terms instead of just scientists :)

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  2. THIS IS A GREEN THUMB POST!!! Thanks for sharing!! Smiles and stop by anytime!

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