For the last couple of weeks, we have been turning our block area into a Garden Center. Here are some of the items we have added on the shelves. Most of it was donated by parents.
Of course, no plant study would be complete without actually planting seeds, so here are some photos of the kids planting. This was one of their favorite things. They love watching them each day to see if they've grown!
During planting, we asked the children lots of questions about what they were doing, what they think would happen to the seeds, what the seed would need, etc.
Here are some of the pictures the children drew as they observed their plants starting to grow. Yes, we do have a student named Daisy and one named Lilly :)
And we also took a nature walk around the school to see what types of plants we could find and make some more observations. Some of the children used clipboards to draw a picture of what they saw.
To incorporate math, we graphed our favorite flower using some pictures we found in a magazine. Each child wrote their name under the one the like best and explained why. Then we counted how many friends liked each and compared which had the most and which had the least.
Here is a very rudimentary chart I made using real nature items I gathered up to show the life cycle of a dandelion as well as some other types of seeds. Sorry it is difficult to see with the tape reflecting light. It could have been a lot neater had I had more time to spend on it, but this still works.
Lori - this really looks fabulous. The kids are obviously enthralled with the projects. Cute graphing board! Too funny that there is a Daisy and Lilly in your class! The pictures are terrific - thanks. Rneee
ReplyDeleteAwesome ideas! I am getting things together for my Flower/Plant unit and I have been debating whether or not to do a Garden Center... but it looks like your kids had lots of fun, so now I think I might just go for it!
ReplyDeleteSara
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