1-2-3 Come Study Seeds With Me.

I just returned from a wonderful get-away weekend with my husband.  We enjoyed seeing all of the gorgeous fall colors here in Michigan and stopping at several farms to buy fresh produce; lots of apples, pumpkins, corn etc. 

It got me to marveling at how things grow, so I thought it would be fun to make several seed activities.  They are quick, easy and interesting math extensions, that also touch a bit on science.

I decided to match the seeds that I had put in the easy-reader booklet: My Seeds, a few years ago. 

Here students trace and write the various fruit words and color the pictures. If you have the seeds available, students can glue them to the appropriate pages.

The Seed Exploration packet covers quite a few math standards.  If you don't want to foot the bill for all of the seeds, you can send the parent-note home asking for donations. 

This is included in the packet.  Our Dollar Store sells packages of sunflower and pumpkin seeds as well as bags of popcorn kernels.

If you carve a pumpkin in your class to analyze pumpkin data, you may want to save the seeds from that and do these as  follow-up activities.  It's also easy to simply buy a package of pumpkin seeds that are ready to eat. 

To introduce your lesson on seeds, use the KWL for seeds that's included in the packet.

There's also an information sheet defining seeds that you can share with your students.

You may want to set up these activities as a center. Fill paper bowls with the various seeds. 

Have students bring up their Dixie cup and take a spoonful of each kind and put it in their cup.  When they get back to their desk they can spill out their seeds and arrange them on the sorting mat. 

After students are done sorting, they take one of each seed and glue it to their identification worksheet. 

Students can also arrange the seeds in size from smallest to largest and then glue one of each kind on their "sequencing sizes" worksheet.

I've also included a guess-timation worksheet.  You can do this as a whole group, or have students work on their own paper. Students also work on their greater than, less than, or equal to skills with a worksheet incorporating those math symbols.

When everyone is done, gather students in a circle to review what they learned, discuss their discoveries, share their worksheets and do any graphing extensions that you want to follow up with. 

Click on the link to view/download the Seed Sorting activities. 

Thanks for visiting today.  I hope you can pop on over tomorrow for the newest FREEBIES hot off the press.

"Good teaching cannot be reduced to a technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher." -Parker Palmer 

Examining Seeds

I revamped this idea from one that was posted on Pinterest where a creative teacher had her students draw some seeds. 

I've since lost the link so if you know who this is, please shoot me an e-mail so I can link up to her and give credit.

As much as I like little ones making their own illustrations, I wanted to add more seeds and didn't want this to be labor intensive with the addition of the writing process as well.

In the past, my Y5's covered all of these seeds throughout the year, so springtime is a wonderful point to compare and contrast them all as a great review.

Students read the sentence, trace the main word, write it, and then color the object that it comes from.

If you want to add more pizzazz to the booklets, you can have students glue the matching seeds to the pages.

For a few dollars, you can buy popcorn, sunflower and pumpkin seeds in bulk and all you need is a few apples and a slice of watermelon and you’re set for the rest of the seeds.

Comparing and contrasting the seeds makes a great discussion as well.  I’ve also provided a graphing extension to nail that standard too.

When everyone has completed their booklet, read it as a whole group to reinforce concepts of print.

I know your students will enjoy taking it home and sharing it with their families.

This booklet is a terrific way to plug in a little science, especially with all the seeds being planted in gardens right now. 

My Seed Book makes a nice addition to your Daily 5 activities as well.

Click on the link to view/download My Seed Booklet

Do you have a seed activity you’d care to share?  I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com OR…feel free to leave a comment here, especially if you use one of my ideas.

Feel free to PIN anything you think will be helpful to parents or teachers.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you can pop by for more fun tomorrow.

Did you know that I added over 50 new items to the cart this month?  Wow!

For more fun in the garden, scroll down for article #2 In My Garden, my newest Count and Color booklet.