Unit Overview
Unit Plan Title: Plants
Curriculum-Framing Questions
Essential Question: What are plants?
Additional Questions: What are seeds made up of? How does a seed become a plant? What are the parts of a plant? What do plants need to grow? How does a plant change through its life cycle? What does heredity mean? Why do people need plants?
Unit Summary: Students learn about plants as living things through reading, drawing, and classroom instruction. Students will trace the life cycle of their own plants in the classroom.
Subject Area(s): Science, Language Arts
Grade Level: K-2
Targeted State Frameworks/Content Standards/Benchmarks:
Life Science (Biology) PreK-2
Standard 1: Recognize that animals (including humans) and plants are living
things that grow, reproduce, and need food, air, and water.
Standard 3: Recognize that plants and animals have life cycles, and that life
cycles vary for different living things.
Standard 4: Describe ways in which many plants and animals closely
resemble their parents in observed appearance.
Standard 7: Recognize changes in appearance that animals and plants go
through as the seasons change.
Standard 8: Identify the ways in which an organism’s habitat provides for its
basic needs (plants require air, water, nutrients, and light; animals require
food, water, air, and shelter).
Student Objectives/Learning Outcomes:
Identify the pats of a seed.
Define the terms “germination,” “first leaves,” “true leaves,” and
“photosynthesis”
Identify the parts of a plant.
Describe how a plant grows.
Explain basic plant needs.
Discuss the importance of plants to people.
Procedures: (see calendar on next page)
Week 1: Seeds |
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5-Mar | 6-Mar | 7-Mar | 8-Mar | 9-Mar |
"What I already know about plants" (pre-assessment) | What is a seed? Create seed diagram classroom display | Look inside a seed: Lima bean experiment | Comparing Seeds | Counting seeds |
KWL Chart | Parts of a seed worksheet | Students will see the parts of a seed first-hand | Different seeds, different plants | Students dissect fruits and chart the number of seeds |
Introduce plant journals | Put lima beans in water to soak over night |
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| Chart student predictions and findings using a double-bar graph |
Week 2: Parts of a Plant |
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12-Mar | 13-Mar | 14-Mar | 15-Mar | 16-Mar |
"What Makes a Garden Grow, Grow, Grow" | What are the different parts of a plant? | What do roots do? | Make observations | How does water travel through a plant? |
Class discussion of what a plant needs to grow | Collage your favorite plant and label the stem, roots, leaves, and flower | Observe roots (dig up a weed and let students notice what the roots look like, dirt, etc) | Students should make a long journal entry on future observation days, allowing for details | The stem is like a straw activity |
Plant our seeds |
| Paper towel and cup of water activity |
| Carnation & food coloring experiment |
Assign plant monitor jobs |
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Week 3: Plant Life Cycle |
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19-Mar | 20-Mar | 21-Mar | 22-Mar | 23-Mar |
Make observations | First leaves | Make observations | Photosynthesis: The importance of leaves | Make observations |
| students will compare a large group of freshly planted seeds that have sprouted |
| 2 plants, remove the leaves from one plant, place both in the sun |
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| cannot really tell the difference because these are "first leaves" |
| Make a prediction about what will happen to the plant without leaves |
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Week 4: Plants in Every Day Life |
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26-Mar | 27-Mar | 28-Mar | 29-Mar | 30-Mar |
Why are plants so important to people? | Plants are food! | Make observations | Final assessment and reflection | Debreif |
Discuss oxygen and carbon dioxide in photosynthesis | Plant eating party and group discussion |
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Assessments:
Students have a pre-assessment asking for prior knowledge of plants
Plant journals will function as formative assessment throughout the unit
Final assessment test and reflection will be the summative assessment (all attached)