Plants, Plants and More Plants

Hello there! I wanted to pop in and share a few highlights of my plant unit.  

Take a look...

Here are some of my favorite plant fiction/ non fiction books.  

I love to use the format of the anchor chart pictured above whenever I start teaching a new thematic unit.  It's a great way to record their schema & new learning.  We refer to this chart and add new information as we learn. 

Next, we dove right into learning about the parts of a plant.  

This has to be one of my favorite art projects this year!   I loved that it has a purpose, and let's be honest it turned out so darn cute! You can find it here. 

After, we used the diagram to label the different parts of a plant my kinders did the same in their interactive journals. 

Also, my class reviewed the life cycle of a plant with this great freebie from the blog Wild About Firsties. 

We practiced what plants need to survive with YET another freebie! I KNOW this is exciting... I love to find good quality freebies! This particular one was found here. 

If you read my blog you know I LOVE a good Harry Kindergarten song! Who doesn't?!? This movie is a great introduction or review of what a plant needs.

The AMAZING school that I work for has recently built 2 growing domes.  These domes allow the students to plant, harvest and learn about plants.  We have an extremely short growing season here in Lake Tahoe, but with the edition of the domes we can grow through out the year.  

My co worker had his kindergarten class make these fantastic ceramic plant name stakes to label the different plants growing in the domes.  How creative is that!?!

We learned about the different parts of a plant that we eat and listed examples of each on the chart above.

My class grew cherry tomatoes in the growing dome.  We read many books abut tomatoes and recorded our new learning on the chart above.   Also, my kinders did some independent writing about tomatoes.

Here is a close up picture of one of our growing domes.

The next few pictures show what it looks like inside the domes.

After, reading many non fiction books about fruits and vegetables we completed the chart above.  Usually,  I remove all pictures from the chart and give them out to pairs of students where they discuss if it's a fruit or vegetable.  Then, it's glued under the correct category.  

Our wonderful PTA put on a farmers market for the students at out school.  Each class gets to go to the farmers market to taste test fruits/ vegetables and different ways to eat them.  

Students bring a reusable bag to bring home fruits and vegetables.  They also bring a water bottle to try 

fruit infused water. 

My class had an amazing time!