~ Spring Lessons ~
Seed to Seedling
To watch seeds sprout: Can seeds germinate in soil, sand, and water? When would a plant need shelter?
First Grade: #1 Seed to Seedling PDF Lesson and Supporting Documentation
Making a Seed Tape
To measure the distance between seeds: Do flowering plants need their own space to grow well?
First Grade #2 Making a Seed Tape PDF Lesson and Supporting Documentation
Planting in the Butterfly & Hummingbird Gardens
To know the right plants to use for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds, and to plant them: Why are flowers important?
~ Fall Lessons ~
Ecosystem Study: The Basic Needs of All Living Things
The main purpose of this lesson is to identify the basic survival needs of all living things and by doing so recognize that people and all animals and plants do have the same basic needs. Understanding that every living thing has the same basic needs will help the children to understand that they have a responsibility to the health of our Earth’s ecosystems. The questions for first graders are: What are the basic needs of people, animals, and plants? and, Are the basic needs of people, animals and plants all the same?
Ecosystem Study #2: Beginning the First Link in the Food Chain – The Producers, with an Extension of an Inquiry Lesson Developed by Penny Davey
In this lesson, children will be introduced to the food chain with emphasis given to the first link in the chain: the producers, the plants. As with all the lessons in the Living Classroom Learning Lab, it is our hope that we can help the children to understand their responsibility to our Earth’s ecosystems.
Harvesting in the George Washington Vegetable Garden
This lesson is the fourth in a series of lessons that will develop the children’s understanding of how a seed grows into a plant that produces a vegetable that can be given or brought to a family’s dinner table. When the children come out to harvest their vegetables, they will see how the small plants and seeds they planted in the George Washington Vegetable Garden during the spring of Kindergarten have grown. Their eyes open wide as they are surprised to see how some of their vegetables have grown down in the ground. They love to dig to find the potatoes!
Harvesting in the George Washington Vegetable Garden PDF Lesson and Supporting Documentation
Observation: Becoming a Nature Detective in the Living Classroom Learning Lab
Being able to sit quietly and observe everything around one’s self is an important skill in learning about nature. As the children progress through the activities in our Living Classroom Learning Lab, they will need to use their senses of sight, sound, smell, and touch to understand the plants and animals that make their home there. The purpose of this lesson is for the children to deepen their observation skills, by exploring nature more closely when they find treasures in the Living Classroom to look at under a microscope. A question to discuss is: What makes on object become
a special treasure?