Introduction
The following activity aims to teach students about the life cycle of plants, how to collect and use data to create bar graphs, how to identify common nouns in English and to develop reading skills. The activity integrates language, science and math concepts into the lesson and as a final product students create a small indoor garden.
Materials you will need:
- soil
- sunflower seeds
- bean seeds
- pea seeds
- large container for planting
- shovels
Activity
1. First, ask your students to read some informative texts to learn about the life cycle of a plant. The illustrations within the texts can be used to help students describe their understanding and to develop vocabulary acquisition. They will learn about the parts of the plant and its survival needs. Use words such as seedling, seed coat, flower, seed, fruit, adult plant to teach students about common nouns.
2. Discuss the features found in the book such as the table of contents, pictures, captions, bold print and glossary and how these characteristics help the reader find information. Explain that these features help the reader to find information, call attention to important words and vocabulary, and explain what they mean.
3. Next, the students will create their own garden. Ask your students to use the materials provided: the sunflower seeds, bean seeds and pea seeds and to plant them in a large container with soil. Make sure they add enough water to moisten the soil.
4. Ask your students to check on their garden every two or three weeks and record updates on the progress of germination on a worksheet. They should record the seeds name and its size as well as any other observations, while making use of the vocabulary they previously learned.
During this period discussion questions can be posed such as;
- Did any seeds have higher germination rates than others? If so, which ones?
- Were there any characteristics of the seeds that seemed to influence the germination rate (such as the size or thickness of the seed)?
5. In the fourth week, ask your students to use their observation notes to create bar graphs that compare each seed size. Students can do it on a worksheet or a computer if they are available. Google app resources are a useful resource for creating bar graphs.
6. Based on their readings and observations, write an informative piece of text to describe a plants life cycle. This can be done as a whole class activity. At this stage, the students should be able to clearly reflect on the characteristics of a plants life cycle while using appropriate vocabulary.
7. The final component of this activity is to ask your students to work on their own writing task. Ask each student to choose a theme and write two informative paragraphs considering the characteristics of the plants life cycle.
Conclusion
This classroom activity gives your students the opportunity to study science and math concepts in a contextualized and meaningful situation and it will also help them improve their reading and writing skills in English. The activity aids their vocabulary acquisition, assesses their reading comprehension and writing skills. Additionally, the creation of an indoor garden is a fun activity which they can care for during the rest of the school year.