Plant Life

Am I the only one that got a late start on plants? This spring definitely snuck up on me!

I made my second big unit around plant life and It was SO.MUCH.FUN. I am really enjoying the creative outlet of writing units right now, and it’s making me feel much more prepared and on top of the units we are studying.

We started with our plant journal and added to it throughout the unit. For these I just take a 12×18 sheet of construction paper and fold it in half. Each student makes a cover that they glue on the front. At the end of the unit, we simply staple all of their work inside.

Then we reviewed several science lessons from throughout the year. Including seasons:

What plants need (we also learned this with pumpkins) :

And we made predictions about what would happen if plants didn’t get one of their important nutrients:

And of course, we discussed how to plant a seed:

And finally, we planted our seeds. This year I decided to plant bulbs, because I thought they would grow a little bigger and easier to see the roots. I really liked how these turned out and definitely think that I will stick to bulbs from here on out.

We also tested our predictions by planting one bulb with no soil, one with no water, and one with no sun. The kids loved talking about the differences of these as they grew (or mostly didn’t grow).

We drew about our observations of our plant growth on a daily basis for six weeks. I failed to take pictures after the first two weeks, but as they grew, we also measured how many inches our plants were. The kids got so excited when we had to stack 2 rulers on top of each other because their plants were so tall!

Writing is a huge part of our daily routine. We had two weeks of themed journal writing. Early in the year, I give them a sentence starter that they copy and complete, but now that we are into May, I give them a question and they are to do their own writing. I am always so proud of how far my kids come in their writing throughout the school year! You can see how they made this question their own:

In the unit, I also have two emergent reader to reinforce some of the concepts learned as well as to practice sight words and vocabulary words. I love mini books and the confidence that they build. Obviously, they are not my main reading curriculum, but a positive supplement. Here is a quick glimpse:

The bulk of our activities lasted two weeks; although, we continued to watch our plants and document their growth longer.
If you are interested in learning more about this unit and all that it includes, head on over to my TPT store to check it out by clicking the link or picture below!

Plants {a fun science, literacy, and math integrative unit}