Teaching Plant Life Cycles

Studying plant life cycles is one of those lessons that students can get some great hands-on real-world life-experience from. This is where you see learning in action!

You can do the plant life cycle activities whenever you want in the school year but it does work better in spring or autumn (when it's not too hot or too cold).

What you will need:

• seeds (I have found beans the best option as their seeds are big and don't get dropped/lost on the floor as easily and they do grow well under most conditions)
• Soil
• A container of some kind
• Water
• A sunny place where students can place them each day or a window sill that catches sunlight
• Count down to see germination chart
• Recording sheet

I got these little jars from Kmart. They come with a lid you can screw down to keep the moisture in (creating a temporary terrarium for the seed).

I also love that they come with a blackboard lid so you can write each student's name on the top of the jar (comes with chalk as well!). The lid kept the frost out and the moisture in but soon the plant outgrew the top of the chair so we had to remove the lid altogether eventually (so put an additional label on that jar with the child's name on).

Get the soil ready and soak it with some water (warm water if you're in Autumn so this can start the germination process a bit quicker). Then place the seed inside (one per jar).

Get students to cover the seed. Screw the lid on and then write the process they took on the recording sheet.

Keep coming back to the recording sheet each day and counting down the days to germination (this will help impatient kids to pace themselves while they wait).

Soon (for us it was around the 9th day) we saw the first shoots appear from the soil. It's important to explain to students what is happening under the soil prior to the first shoots popping out of the soil.

Don't forget to keep the countdown going till the plant has fully emerged from the soil.

Remember to water them a little each day and to record the features of the plant in the seed diary.

It won't be long till the seed is fully grown.

Then what? Well, students can take the seeds home and plant them in their garden (you could rehome them in a plastic container if you want to keep the glass jars to use again).

You can get all the printables for the plant life cycle in my TpT store here or on my website here.

If you have any tips or hints to share about planting seeds in your classroom, please leave them in the comments below.

5 Ways to Teach Animal Habitats to Keep Kids Engaged

Exploring animal habitats is one of those engaging elements of the curriculum and is actually fun to teach. Students love learning about new creatures and it's one of those teaching units where you can hear students saying "Cool!' - how often does that happen in your classroom?

Recently we started a study on animal habitats and as we live Queensland I thought, why not study creatures that inhabit the reef? I know my students would love learning about sharks and clownfish (Finding Nemo anybody?). Lots and lots to explore... so here are the little tips I did to keep the learning fun while still achieving learning goals.

Connections to the curriculum: 
ACARA Year 1 Science

• Living things and basic needs including food and water
• Living things live in different places where their needs are met

1. First, we made sure we had a good solid understanding of the word 'habitat' and then built up some keywords on our learning wall for 'shelter', 'predator', 'burrow' and 'hollow'. The time you spend unpacking these words will help your students build upon that knowledge as your lesson progresses. 

2. Next, we watched a video on the Great Barrier Reef and aimed to answer the question 'what is a reef?' with the help of a worksheet containing definitions of the different types of reefs.

3. After that, I divided the class into groups and gave them one creature each to study. However, as the shark was everybody's favourite we did that one first as a 'we do' example. We studied the fact sheet for the Whitetip Reef Shark and looked at some pictures. Then each group took one of the remaining sea creature each and did a group read of the fact sheet. 

4. Each student then completed a recording sheet on their animal and the groups presented their findings to the whole class. We used the slides to show the class what each animal looked like and discussed their findings. 

5. Lastly, students put their own diorama together. Each student brought in an old shoe box and we used the templates to cut out the creatures and place them into the box, remember first to paint the background (or use the background sheet if you want to reuse them). We used fishing wire to hang the fish in place and used bluetak on each end because we needed to keep reposititioning them (plus it means we can use the box again by not making holes in it). This was THE most exciting part of the lesson and students love hands-on activities to demonstrate their learning. 

All the material for this activity can be found in my TpT store or over on my website.