First Grade Garden Lesson 1: Planting

The garden lessons are for my daughter's first grade class.  It is structured that we meet at the beginning as a group.  Then we go to the garden area which has a number of picnic tables so that we can split the class of 30 into 4 groups.  One group works in the garden with me (the parent volunteer), two groups work pretty independently at a table, and the last group works at a table with the teacher.  About every 5-7 minutes, the kids switch tables.

Objective:

• learn the parts of a plant
• learn what it takes for a plant to grow
• learn about what we were growing

Group Activity:

• Read The Carrot Seed
• Show what we will be growing: radishes, sugar snap peas, broccoli, carrots
• Discuss the parts of a plant
• Discuss what is needed for a plant to grow (sun, soil, water, love)

Garden Activity:

Plant the seeds!  Read the seed package and have each of the kids plant a few seeds.  Each group gets a type of plant that they can take ownership of growing.

Table 1:

Put together the experiment.  Use 4 jars (per group).  In each of the jars place the following:

1. Soil, a small cup of water, a strawberry plant
2. Soil, strawberry plant (no water)
3. Soil, a small cup of water and a paper bag over the jar (no sun)
4. Small cup of water, strawberry plant (no soil)

Cover the jar with plastic wrap and a rubber band.  The water from the cup will evaporate and condense on the plastic wrap and then drip back down on the plants to water them.

The hypothesis that the kids will easily draw is that only the plant with sun, soil, and water will survive.

Table 2:

Parts of a plant worksheet. 
This is the one that we used.  We talked about all the plant parts as a group and then each child filled out a paper to label the parts. Plant Worksheet Link

Table 3:

This table did a taste test of different types of carrots!  They each tried a green carrot, a purple carrot, and an orange carrot.  Then they marked what their favorite was on a piece of paper.