Lesson 10 - I am Thankful for Trees, Plants, and Flowers

Please see my page on Sunbeams for an overview of my teaching system.

Looking at Sugardoodle, there are some great ideas for this lesson.  I really liked one posted by Laurie:

"I helped each class member make their own set of Binoculars. for each one I used packaging tape to tape together two toilet paper rolls and yarn to make them hang around their necks. I also printed up a "Heavenly Father made everything for me to see".  Instead of sending them home to be forgotten I kept them hanging in the classroom. Every class we would take a time out and get into a reverent line and put our binoculars around their neck. We would incorporate this into our walks. The class would each take turns telling the others what they were seeing. They loved this because it was routine for them and they were always very reverent while participating."  (Idea by Laurie from Sebastopol, California)

This idea is great for a number of reasons.  It presents the opportunity to connect multiple lessons, which is always a good thing.  The more we can connect things explicitly, the better children will be able to connect the ideas into a "big picture" understanding instead of segmented ideas.

This idea also incorporates hands-on activity which is beneficial for learning.  Hands-on activity engages the children in learning that is active versus passive, typically resulting in deeper learning, and more likelihood that the child will retain that learning.

This idea was also very thoughtful in considering routines and home connections.  Even though a good teacher is always hopeful that learning will carry over and be continued at home, the reality is that it doesn't always happen.  Teachers can present opportunities, but the teacher only has control over her classroom.  So, if we want to connect lessons through explicit or concrete means, we need to assume that responsibility on ourselves rather than hope that it will happen at home. This is not to say that we shouldn't present opportunities for learning to carry over to home.  We should do this.  But, if we want something to carry from lesson to lesson, we need to keep it in the classroom under our responsibility.

But, even though this is a great idea, I won't be doing it in my classroom.  As I said a few weeks ago, circumstances can constrain what is possible, regardless of what we like or not.  Although I would love to take my children on walks as suggested by Laurie, and can imagine that it is quite possible in California, the ground is currently covered in snow and ice here in New York, and I don't think we will be going on walks anytime soon.

Also, keeping the binoculars hanging in the classroom probably wouldn't work well if you share the building - as we do - without a means to store very much.  And I don't want to be carrying them back and forth each week.

Going back to Sugardoodle, I loved the Seed Fun activity linked there.  I am thinking about doing something like this.  I would love to have the children explore seeds, plant a seed, then take home a growing plant. 

I love the craft idea of coloring over leaves.  I've seen this managed very well by gluing leaves to a paper then taping/stapling a page over top.  Then children can do the rubbing without having to handle the leaves or keep the paper in place, etc.  It makes it very manageable for the children.  Unfortunately, with snow still on the ground, I really don't have access to leaves right now.  So, we won't be doing this activity.  But, I'd like to fit it in at some point during the summer/fall.

I like the fingerprint trees, but I typically avoid paint activities because of the set-up, clean-up, and drying time requirements.

I also like the hand-print flowers, and the tracing trees activities, but both of these require tracing then cutting children's hand prints.  Without significant help, this would be a recipe for disaster.  What would the children do while you are tracing and cutting?  How would this be meaningful for them?  This could be managed, though, if you traced their handprints the week before and did the cutting at home.  Then, a meaningful connection could be made to show that each plant is individual and unique, just like they are.  Something to consider...

Other resources that I have found and liked:

A file folder activity on Etsy ($2.50).  Several resources on Teachers Pay Teachers for the plant cycle, including this one ($4.00).

The manual itself has a lot of fun activities, and most of what I had found and liked, really came from the manual - even if I first found it on a website.  I liked the idea of talking about how birds use trees to nest in.  But, I would rather save this for the lesson on birds.  



Anyway, this is what I've decided to use:

We will start the lesson off with the Creation storybook by the Barefoot Teacher found on Teachers Pay Teachers ($1.75), that I introduced a few weeks ago.  I printed out the pages, but didn't bind them in any way.  This way I could pull out the focus page(s) when the story was done and place them on the board.  (For this week's lesson, on plants, we will focus on Day 3.)  We will repeat this each week for the Creation lessons until we've completed all of the pages.  Reading the same story each week will create a concrete connection between the lessons and help the children better grasp the process of the Creation.

The activity selection is going to be done using leaves.  I cut out leaves from green construction paper, and wrote the different activities on the back.  I will tape (or use magnets) the leaves to the board, and the children will take turns selecting them. 


Activities:

• Song - Popcorn Popping (p. 242)
• I am thankful for flowers - (aligns with the end of the manual section "Trees, plants, and flowers make the earth a beautiful place to live") I will start this section by showing some pictures of flowers.    Because I didn't want to spend much time on the intro, I decided not to make individual pictures and cut them out.  I just made this collage of different flowers, so we can simply focus on that they are all flowers, and that flowers are beautiful.  After introducing the flowers, I will hand out a page (printed on card stock) that says "I am thankful for flowers."  Then, using various colors of construction paper, I've cut out a bunch of different flowers.  I've also got a variety of different colors of circle stickers (color coding labels from Staples).  I will let the children choose up to 3 different flowers and glue them to their pages.  Then, they can choose circle stickers to put in the centers of their flowers.  I will then tell the children that flowers have stems and leaves.  Using crayons, the children can add stems and leaves to their flowers.  I will end by reminding children that God created beautiful flowers for us, and we should be thankful for them.

• Things that are made of wood - (aligns with the manual section, "Plants and trees are necessary for us to live) I will start by showing a picture of a tree, and letting the kids identify what it is.  Then, I will show them a piece of wood, and remind them we get wood from trees.  I will ask what are some things we make from wood?  Then, I will bring various items to show... a picture of a wooden chair (furniture is often made from wood); a wooden spoon and bowl (utensils and dishes can be made from wood); a hammer with a wooden handle and a ruler (tools are often made from wood); a basket; a box; a picture frame (decorations and many other things in our home can be made of wood); a clothespin; a toy (I'm using a Thomas the Train and one piece of track - but there are many other toys made of wood).  I will then make the connection that God created trees for us to help us.
• Many foods come from plants - I will bring different foods/fruits that come from plants.  I want to show the children how they are plants or come from plants, and then let them try them if they want.  (Of course, you should check on food allergies for this!)  
• Song - Little Seeds Lie Fast Asleep (p. 243) (or you could do "Little Purple Pansies")
• Let's plant a flower - I found some small clay pots at the Dollar Store (3 for $1), but you could also use plastic/paper cups as suggested in the manual and elsewhere.  I will put the soil into the cups before going, to minimize the potential mess.  I have a large Tupperware container that will hold the filled pots very nicely for transporting them to Church.  I also have a packet of Marigold seeds, and a spray bottle.  (I chose Marigolds because the seeds are a good size.  You can use any seeds you want, but if the children are going to handle them, you want them large enough that they can handle them OK.  You don't want to use really small seeds.)  We will start this activity off by briefly looking at the plant cycle.  I will use the visuals included in the file folder activity on Etsy ($2.50).  I won't do the file folder game itself, just the sequence cards of planting the seed, watering the seed, then the flower growing.  I have also printed out one activity from Teachers Pay Teachers ($4.00) that looked the best.  But I was a little disappointed.  It goes into too much detail for what I want, and it has some mistakes.  But, the visuals are nice, so I'm going to use the poster sheets for seed, stems and roots, leaves, and flowers, as well as the one showing what plants need.  We will go through these visuals first to show how plants grow.  Then I will take them through the file folder game sequence, to show how we plant seeds.  Then we will actually plant our seeds.

Other things you could do, to fill time or just for some engaging activities...

• You could make a matching game with flowers.  Use this activity to remind children that God created flowers to make our world beautiful.
• You could do wooden puzzles, or other wooden toys/games, and remind the children that wood comes from the trees that God created for us.  There are many wonderful things that we can do with wood.

During snack time, we will read "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein.

For coloring,  I chose to do the black and white poster from Sunday Savers.  We will also be doing day 3 in the Emergent Reader version of the book by Barefoot Teacher ($2.50).  I printed out a copy of the last version for each child when we started the Creation lessons.  Each week we'll do the appropriate page(s) until it is done.

So, how did it go?  It went well!  I'm not sure why, but the kids in Primary were a little crazy today.  Maybe due to a change in weather.  But even so, the children were engaged in the lesson, and it went well!  We did get started a little late, though .  As soon as we said the prayer, a couple of children asked if we could have snack first, because they were hungry.  Given how restless they were, I thought this was a good idea.  Because we had gotten off to a late start, we did the Creation book during snack, not "The Giving Tree". This worked out well!  "The Giving Tree" is a long book, and would have required considerably more time.

For the "foods come from plants" activity, I brought in an apple that I had cut in half - to show the seeds - and apple slices, a whole strawberry, and strawberry slices, and a clementine.  I also brought in a container of maple syrup and let those that wanted to try the syrup (on plastic spoons).  The kids loved this activity!  And it came at the end of the lesson, so it helped balance out that we had snack at the very beginning.  Because we did this activity after planting our seeds, the children really enjoyed finding the seeds in the fruits!  Knowing this now, even if this activity is chosen before the planting, I would probably bring out the apple and fruits again to help the children see the seeds.

For planting the flowers, having the soil in the pots before hand worked out great!  The children were really good about following directions, and not playing with the pots, so we only had one minor little spill.  (Next time, I would probably bring in small paper plates to place the pots on, just in case.  Also, napkins for the children to wipe their hands with afterwards.) I had an extra pot, so I modeled each step of the process before having the children do them.  I had the children push a small hole into the soil with a finger, then I gave each child 3 seeds.  They put the seeds in the hole, then gently covered them with soil.

After planting the seeds, I asked the children what our seeds needed to grow, besides the soil.  They called out water and sun.  So, we then passed around the spray bottle, and we sprayed our soil three times.  The children were very good with this!  Of course, if I had more than the five children, I may have wanted another spray bottle.  (In fact, even with five children, a second spray bottle would have been good.)  While we were spraying them, I reminded them that we learned last week about how God created water for us.  Because plants need water, it was important that God created the water before He created the plants.  (It was nice to be able to make this connection!)

Once the pots were all sprayed, I had the children push their pots to the center of the table.  We had already sung "Popcorn Popping" earlier, but since they enjoyed it so much, I had them sing it again a couple of times while I put a piece of plastic wrap over each pot, secured it with a rubber band, and wrote their names on them.

We did run out of time, too, so we didn't sing our second song (Little Seeds Lie Fast Asleep) or color the pages from the Emergent Reader.  We will color the pages next time!