First Grade Garden Lesson 2: Soil

Objective

• Learn what makes up soil.
• Learn what organic and non-organic material is.
• Learn what good soil feels like.

Group Activity:

• Discuss last weeks carrot taste test findings! 
• Go over the worksheet about the parts of a plant (could have done at the end of the previous week).
• Talk about the new topics: soil and organic vs non-organic material

New Topic: Soil

Soil is not just made up of dirt - there are many things in soil.  If you look at it closely you will see rocks, bark, pieces of plants, poop (my soil has plenty of snail poop in it!), and other organic materials.

New Topic: Organic vs Non-organic Material

Organic material is anything that can decompose (or break down over time) into soil.  For example, a tree is organic, animals are organic; some things are not organic such as your computer and plastic toys. 

Garden Activity:

• Talk about what has and has not grown.
• Look at the seed packets to see when we should see sprouts. 
• Water the garden.  One person (alphabetical order) from each group gets to water what their group planted.

Table 1:

Look at the experiments from last week. 
Take the strawberry plants out of the jar and glue them onto thick paper. 

Table 2:

• Mystery Boxes.  Use boxes with soil inside.  Have the kids feel the soil and pick which soil they think plants would do best in.  We used empty tissue boxes.
• In one box put sandbox sand. 
• In another box put a hard, clay soil (easily found in your yard).
• In the third box put potting soil. 
• Also complete worksheet worksheet link

Table 3:

• In this table look at various soil samples.  Each group looked at one type of soil sample.
• Use magnifying glass to get a closer look.
• Have a large paper out for all the kids to write down their findings (bark, rock, dirt, etc).
• One group looked at potting soil.
• One group looked at soil from the lawn.
• One group looked at soil from the strawberry garden.
• One group looked at soil from the regular garden.

Closing:

• Talk about the strawberry plants and how only the ones with sun, soil, and water survived. 
• Talk about the mystery boxes - ask the kids which soil they think is the best for plants to grow in.