Plant Life Cycles Unit-{Day 2}

Despite illness and my need to leave work early today, we continued our study of plant life cycles today.

We began our study today with an independent labeling activity from Caitlin Clabby from Kindergarten Smiles.

We followed up with the much anticipated seed planting activity.

For our planting activity, I purchased the following from our local Walmart:

 *a large bag of Jiffy Natural & Organic Seed Starting Mix

*Jiffy-Strips (32 count)

*Solo Clear Cups

*three different types of marigold flower seed packets

You may be wondering why I am putting the Jiffy-Strip pots into the cups rather than just adding soil directly into it. Well, a couple weeks ago, my teacher partners and I planned out the rest of our year's themed weeks since we are down to the last grading period. I then realized that Mother's Day will be coming up very soon, and I started wondering what I was going to have my students make to send home to their sweet moms. Then it occurred to me that this week would be a great opportunity to plant flowers for plant life cycles week, and hopefully they will have started to grow by Mother's Day so they could take them home to their moms. We will decorate the cups the week of Mother's Day, and then will send them home that Friday. It was a perfect idea!

I began by cutting apart each Jiffy-Strip pot, enough for each student.

I then called each table of students up to grab a cup. They added a tiny bit of soil in the bottom and then added the Jiffy-Strip pot into the cup. 

We then very carefully added soil around the sides of the pot and into the pot. 

Students then used their pointer finger to make a hole in the center of the soil.

Next, it was time for the seed planting. These are the three marigold packets I purchased for my students to choose from.

 I taped the packets to the sides of a cup...

& added the seeds into the designated cups. This allowed for students to choose their own seeds based on the marigolds they wanted to try to grow, and it also allowed for them to see what the seeds looked and felt like; an added sensory moment.

Students picked their seeds, and inserted them into the hole they had made in their soil.

Then, they covered the seeds up and patted the soil down a little bit.

Our last step was to water our newly planted marigold seeds. 

We placed our cups in the windowsill, and are waiting anxiously for them to begin growing.

Tomorrow we will be "planting" beans, so that we can observe how they sprout. Stay tuned! :)