Mindful Monday- Plants

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Mindful Monday

This is where each Monday we are mindful of our pedagogy, slowly adjusting our lessons to match our theories.
 We use each spring to teach children about plants.  I bet I could enter any school from infants to fifth grade and see something about plants in a lesson during the spring.  It is almost as predictable as saying "look, they've fallen asleep" and waking half the class.
While I'm not crazy creative when it comes to plants, I'd like to share a few things that we've done over the years.  I like to start with talking about different kinds of plants.  We read several books about plants and even make and label a diagram to keep at the children's eye level for their reference.

This particular diagram is of the beanstalk from Jack and the Beanstalk.  My children were really into the story that particular year.

Then we take a trip to buy plants from the local hardware store each year.  When your kids are cute you sometimes get plants for free too!
After buying our plants we watch them grow.  This process can be filled with many science and mathematical opportunities.  We have graphed the growth, drawn pictures at regular intervals, and made predictions.
 
 
We also like to take time and look for all the bugs that visit our plants.  Bugs open the door for a whole other world of study.  Using magnified containers we can compare and classify what we have found.

While we are waiting for the plants to get as big as Jack and the Beanstalk's beanstalk (or so the predictions go) I try to introduce the idea of bugs as helpers.  I love the idea of taking a scary little guy, the bee, and changing him into our needed friend.  I have asked the head of our local beekeeper's association to come talk to my class.  I have also taken a field trip to a farm that offered bee education.

After being so busy learning about bees it surprises our kids how quickly the plants can grow.  To finish off our unit we usually end up trying our plants.  Since the kids have spent most of the spring and summer learning about and tending to the plants they become quite attached.  EVERY one of my children tried the squash and tomatoes!  I even had teachers who have never liked squash before ask for seconds!

 
The idea with elongating a unit like this is that you can get a deeper understanding of the material while hitting multiple other standards. 
Do you ever use a unit for an extended period (more than a month)?  How have you liked it?  Do you do anything special with plants?  

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