The Life Cycle of a Plant

Children enjoyed watching the video The Magic School Bus to begin our discussion about life cycles. We read the book The Tiny Seed by Eric Carl which is one of my favorite childhood stories. Each student received their plant to observe and record their observations in their notebook. Students used many vocabulary words we have learned throughout the past week. Everyone worked like scientists by observing and asking questions.

Our project was to make a Soda Bottle Terrarium in order to further observe the life cycle (growth and development) of plants. They followed all of the directions and made amazing terrariums!! Students will be able to observe their plants at home as well as in the classroom. Make sure to check the amount of sunlight and water!


Homework:

Please review the life cycle of a plant. Using Flickr (the website we explored) find one photograph related to plants and post it on our blog!

Complete a rough draft of your Mini Research Project and bring it to class tomorrow. We will be working with partners to read and revise them.

Functions of the Parts of a Plant

Students learned how to add tags to their websites on delicious for the Mini Research Project. They are great learners and teachers that can show you how to add tags too. Continue working hard and gathering information. We will begin writing the rough draft tomorrow in class. Come in tomorrow ready to work!!

In the computer lab, students researched the functions of specific parts and shared their findings with myself and their classmates. We learned the function of the roots, stems, leaves, petals, seeds and flowers.

Reminder: Students science notebooks will be checked next week (Thursday or Friday) to make sure all of the worksheets have been completed and added into the notebook. Please make sure they organized and orderly. The worksheet we filled out in class is posted on Blackboard if anyone would like to re-write or study from it.

Homework assignment: Matching worksheet was handed out in class. It is also posted on Blackboard. Let me know if there are any questions.

Students chose to plant pea seeds, marigold seeds or rye grass seeds. At the end of our unit student will be able to bring their plants home. We are looking forward to observing and watching our plants grow through out the week! :)

Parts of a Plant

Today, students made great connections and wrote thoughtful responses to my question: Is a plant living or nonliving? We learned all of the important parts of plant and discussed the basic needs of a plant. Students were given a variety of materials to make a plant on paper. They used their creativity to make beautiful plants that will be hung around the classroom. When given the task to label all of the parts learned, students were able to complete the task.




I decided to give the students a challenge and to utilize technology in a new way. Students were introduced to a social bookmarking website called delicious. I would suggest for parents and guardians to take a look at the website as well. It can be very useful in many ways, not only in school.

Mini Research Project (guidelines were already given in class but just a reminder):

1. Students chose a specific type of plant that you are interested in to research and gather information about. Examples: tomato plants, sunflower plants, etc.

2. Using delicious find websites that contain useful information and add(bookmark) the website. Tomorrow in class we will learn about adding tags and how to organize the resources you have found.

3. After you feel you have enough websites, you can write a few paragraphs about your plant. Remember to chose one basic need a plant depends on and explain why. Also add an illustration or print a picture of your plant from the internet. I would like you to label all of the parts on your type of plant.

Everyone did a great job working hard in class today. Good luck working on your project! Feel free to ask me any questions.

Living and Nonliving

Today we learned all about living and nonliving things. Students did an excellent job deciding if objects and organisms were living or nonliving. They provided great explanations to support their decisions.

Here is the homework assignment:

Post a comment stating whether the photograph is living or nonliving. Write at least two sentences explaining why it is living or nonliving. At the bottom of your post provide at least one useful website you discovered.


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I found this great website that has a living vs. nonliving quiz for practice. All you have to do is click on your choice and an explanation is provided if your are correct or incorrect. Please give the quiz a try!! We will discuss if this was helpful or not tomorrow in class.

Click the link to go to the quiz :

http://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/science/sciber00/7th/classify/living/quiz/livingqu.htm

Welcome to Our Class Blog!

I would like to welcome parents, guardians and students to my third grade classroom. We are going to have a wonderful year learning and working together.

This week we will be completing a unit theme in science all about plants. There will be different activities and homework assignments related to the topic for each day. Our first day we will learn about living and nonliving organisms and objects. It will be important to know and understand the difference throughout our unit. The next day we will focus on the specific parts of a plant. After we will learn the various functions of a plant and finally discuss the life cycle ending with a hands-on project that you can take home.

If there are any questions please feel free to post a comment, email me or ask me in class. I am looking forward to our unit! :)