The month of March was C R A Z Y. We spent basically the entire first three weeks preparing for Open House (what an intense, exciting time!). We made beautiful artwork and did awesome writing in the classroom, but we didn't have much time to spend outdoors in our garden. We DID however begin our plants and plant needs unit and we were able to plant and sprout seeds before Open House - we planted radish, carrot, lettuce, kale, and sunflower seeds and every single one of them sprouted! I picked up some mini terracotta pots from Michaels and the kids labeled their pot and created a label for their plant. We took turns watering the sprouts and setting them out in the sunlight everyday to catch some rays.
This was how they looked right after we planted them, with the cute student handwriting on the pot and the label to show what they were growing.
There were a few immediate sprouts and we had the opportunity to watch them grow right before our eyes! This sunflower sprout still has it's seed coat - I told the kiddos that shedding seat coats is kind of like when you outgrow your old jacket - you're getting bigger each day and your old
clothes just don't fit anymore...
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| Here's another photo of a seed coat still clinging to a sprout. |
These were lettuce seeds that began almost instantaneously.
In studying plants in our science readers as well as planting seeds and watching them grow, we conducted observations that helped us track the quantitative and qualitative changes. We designed the front of a plant brochure together to illustrate the various parts of a plant (roots, stems, leaves, petals) as well as the five things all plants need to survive (soil, water, air, sunlight, and space). Here's a cute YouTube video I played for my Firsties often during our beginning stages of plant exploration (love that music and dance integration!!):
Here's some photos of how our plants looked after they were well on their way - I had each student take a turn at carrying the trays out into the sunlight each morning, a couple more students to water the plants each day, and two students to carefully collect the trays and replace them in the classroom at the end of each day. I was trying to prep them for garden roles, and I think it worked really well! They're asking me all the time who will do what garden role. They love it! Here's a few shots of our successful sprouts:
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| Class sprouts |
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| Radish sprouts! |
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| The terracotta pots were $.70 each and it was worth it! |
When we were done with our observations and creating our plant brochures, I had the students put the brochure together. With the help of a fellow experienced first grade teacher (I'm ALWAYS getting priceless advice from my first grade team!) we displayed both the students' sprouts and brochures to parents and families at Open House. My Firsties were SO EXCITED to show off what they had grown and to share their knowledge about plant structures and needs.
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| The final product on display for Open House! Aren't the illustrated flowers just adorable?! |
So, even though I put my body and mind and energy through the grinder to get Open House accomplished, the best reward was knowing that the kids got a great introduction to plant basics that we needed as a foundation to begin our garden lessons. All's well that ends well, as they say!
