Spring Reading Fun

As the end of the year approaches and it becomes harder to keep all my kids interested, I try to add more science into my literacy intervention groups. This year my kindergarteners are reading really well and I thought I could help out the teachers by covering some of their science standards.

We began our unit by reading an early reader all about growing plants. This book introduced some of the vocabulary we would be using while learning all about plant parts and life cycles. The kids were very excited about plant seeds. They each got a seed and placed it in water. They enjoyed getting a close look at their seeds as they began to grow.

After examining the seeds with magnifying glasses, we did a close reading about the parts of a plant. They decided they needed to use their magnifying glasses to examine words as well. When our seeds had sprouted, we took advantage of the nice weather and spent some time carefully planting the seeds into cups. Every couple of days we updated our plant journals which required them to make observations and use measurement to track their plant's growth.

Caring for their own plants made the kids very aware of what a plant needed to grow. I had a couple of kids who over watered their seeds and learned a lesson about too much water being bad for plants. Luckily, I planted extras to replace the ones which had drowned. We observed our pea seeds growth for almost two weeks before each kindergartener got to proudly take his or her plant home.

The kids loved how the pea plants seemed to hold on to their hands!

Each day I get an update on how big they have grown. Hopefully this weekends snow storm hasn't killed them all!