Adventures in First Grade

Sunday, March 25, 2012

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I love all of the seasons, but I especially enjoy spring.  Working in my garden, flowers in bloom, warm temperatures - I love it all.

Teaching about plants is one of my favorite units.  When I did my student teaching in a first grade classroom ten or so years ago, I made a big book that shows the parts of a plant, what plants need to survive, etc.  It is showing it's age, but I still enjoy using it:


















The yellow parts of a plant signs are on Velcro.  Each child will have the opportunity to match the vocabulary word with the picture.  I also have one with a tree where the students have to identify the roots, trunk, branches, and leaves.

This past summer, I found the neatest thing at the kids section in Bass Pro Shop.  I have found LOTS of neat science things there.  This is a great way to help students understand the plant parts:



This kit contains three plastic tubes, peat pellets, and a package each of carrots, onions, and radishes.  We planted the seeds and borrowed some space on one of my neighbor teacher's window ledge to put our "garden," since, as many of you know, I don't have a window in my classroom.



We can't wait to watch our garden grow!

We will be planting some other seeds, which I will blog about later in the week.

Happy Sunday!

4 comments:

  1. I love your Flower Big Book! I think if I can get to some materials this week (I'm out of town and on spring break!) I may just have to borrow this idea and create my own!

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  2. Cute plant book! We are starting a plant unit in April, as well. Also, thanks for the tip on good science stuff at Bass Pro Shops - my dad and brother will be pleased to know I might want to tag along on their trips there now ;)

    Last year, we planted bean seeds, but didn't have a good place to re-plant them outside at school. We go to school all summer so it would have been nice to be able to tend them all the way through, but they didn't do too well once they outgrew their original little containers. I need to figure out something else for this year!

    Kara
    Spedventures

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  3. I love your big class book. A plant unit is so much fun, and brings Spring right inside. I also love this time of the year.

    Dee
    First Impressions

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  4. That is an awesome big plant book. I also love teaching about plants!! Thanks for the heads up about bass pro shop I need to check it out for stuff. :)
    Jessica

    Apples and Papers

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