Seed Sorting

The students use the tongs to pick up the beans/seeds and sort them by seed type.  Some of the seeds are similar so they have to pay close attention to details.  This work strengthens their fine motor skills needed for writing.

This is how the work is set up n the shelf.

Parts of a Plant

While working for a school district a few years ago I had access to an overhead projector.  I am not sure where I got the worksheet for this poster but you could use any drawing.  The students are able to label the pictures.  We also sing a song about the parts of the plants and we point to the poster as we sing.  The song is "Parts of a Flower" from Dr. Jean's "Kiss Your Brain" CD http://www.drjean.org/html/cds_f/cds_kiss.html I am also going to use felt to make a parts of the plant work so the students can manipulate the parts and label them on their own.  I found a website that shows students using playdough to make the parts of a plant http://www.hummingbirded.com/spring.html

Seeds in a Bag

We planted seeds in a bag in order to show the students how seeds grow and to better see all the parts of a plant.  Before having the students plant their seeds I placed a paper towel inside a sandwich size ziploc bag.  I then put a line of staples about an inch from the top of the bag to keep the seeds from falling into the water.  The students then placed 3 beans into the bag and poured 3 tbs of water into the bag.  I taped them onto the window.

The bottom row of bags are labeled "no water" and "no air" so the students could see that seeds need air and water to grow.

Here you can see the seed growing.  We talked about the different parts of the plant: roots, stem, leaves.

A Seed Needs . . .

During line time, I talked with the students about what seeds need in order to grow.  I then presented this activity to them.  I pre-folded the paper in half long ways and short ways so the fold lines made 4 boxes.  Then I showed them how to draw a line on the fold lines.  I then cut the sentence labels and glued one into each box and drew a picture to go with each label.

This is how the work is placed on the science shelf.

Here is a picture of the finished sample that I made.  I then hung it on the wall above the science shelf so the students could reference it while working.