Lesson Plan #4

Plant Unit

I thought that since it is spring, it would be nice to learn about flowers. What better time to learn about it than the season the flowers begin to bloom.

This is a 1^st grade science lesson plan on plant parts, life cycle, and function. This unit covers most aspects of plants. It covers functions of plant parts, needs of plants, characteristics of plants, and their life cycle. The main question is “What are plants?” The daily questions relate to this main question. Some of them include: What does a plant need to grow? What are the parts of the plants? What does the stem do? What do the leaves do?

                                                     

The unit is done over a 10-day period. On day 1 and 2 students will learn about seeds. The activities include seed sorting and lime bean dissection and reading the story The Tiny Seed and observations of seeds. Day 3 and 4 touches base on needs of a plant. Students will create a KWL chart for the 3rd day and the activity for the fourth day is Soy Bean Babies – bean germination. Day 5 and 6 is on parts of a plant and stem functions. The activities for these two days include concept mapping & dissect a flower and drinking straw flower stem and dying a carnation or celery. Day 7 is on leaves. Students will sort leaves by attributes and do leaf surgery on plants. Day 8 and 9 is plant attributes. Day 8 involves edible/non-edible with the activity being comparing fruits and vegetables and listing with a chart the plant parts that we eat. Day 9 is the uses for plants. As a class, we will read the story Why the Brown Bean was Blue and illustrate charts of plant uses. Day 10 will be on the life cycle of a plant. The activity will be a class diagram of a plants life cycle and student written stories.

This lesson plan caught my attention because it is so detailed. It goes in depth for each day. For each day they show the procedure, the materials needed for each activity in each day and even an approximate time needed. It also includes notes and safety notes. After every depth for each day, they include all the worksheets and charts needed for each day. The fact that most activities were hands on caught my attention even more.

This lesson plan can be found at: http://katho3.people.wm.edu/plantunit.pdf