Week of May 8, 2017

Plants!

Enduring understandings that the student should have by the end of the unit:

v Plants are living things; every part of a plant has an important function.

v Plants grow from seeds and need water, nutrients and light to live.

v Plants are all around us.

v There are many different types of plants.

v Plants are important for many reasons.

Lessons and Activities For Learning Centers

Blocks-Build Plants:

The teacher will wrap blocks in green, brown and other color papers and invite children to use them to create stems, tree trunks, soil etc.  The teacher will supply paper, scissors and tape for children to use to create leaves, flowers etc. to add to their plants. Add pictures of a wide variety of plants for children to reference as they build. As children create their plants talk with them about the parts of the plants and types of plants they are creating, highlighting vocabulary words such as branch, flower, leaves and stem. 

Pretend play Flower Shop:

The teacher will turn Dramatic Play into a flower shop by adding pretend flowers, containers and pictures of flower arrangements as well as a cash register, notepad, writing utensils etc. Children can pretend to make, buy and sell floral arrangements. As you play with the children, use and highlight vocabulary words such as bouquet, floral arrangement, florist and flower. 

Art-Paper Flowers:

The teacher will supply pipe cleaners as well as tissue paper circles. Children can pierce the middle of the tissue paper circles with the pipe cleaner, adding as many as they would like, then fold the circles up to create a flower. After creating these flowers children can use them in the Dramatic Play flower shop.

Science-Plant Life Cycle:

The teacher will provide individual pictures of the plant life cycle. Ask children to sequence the pictures. The teacher will provide pictures / diagrams for children to refer to as they play and talk with them about each stage in the life cycle. 

Math-Seeds in a Watermelon:

The teacher will cut out several paper watermelon and add a number to each one and ask children to put the appropriate number of seeds on each Watermelon. Encourage children to write their own numbers, as they are ready. 

Library-Felt Board Story: 

The teacher will create felt board pictures for a favorite class book on plants. Invite children to use the pictures to retell the story. 

Writing-Seed Letters:

The teacher will write letters on index cards. Provide seeds for children to place on the letters. The teacher will talk with the children about the letters they chose to create and some of the words that start with those letters. 

Technology-Plants Around the World:

The teacher will pull up pictures of plants that grow in different parts of the world or may be novel to the children. For example, succulents, palm trees and cattails may be plants that children in New York City do not see on a regular basis. The teacher will invite children to take notes while they look at different types of plants. They can draw pictures of what they see or write letters they hear in the names of plants they hear or see on the screen. Provide various types of paper commonly used for note taking such as lined paper, post-it notes etc. 

Sensory-Seaweed:

The teacher will add plastic plants to the water in the sensory table along with pretend fish, toy boats etc. Invite children to talk about the different places they can find plants and discuss why plants grow in the bottom of oceans, rivers, lakes etc. 

Some of the books we will read this week are:

•  The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss  

•  An Orange in January by Dianna Hutts Aston 

Reminders

•  Friday, May 12 is muffin with mom day all moms are invited to celebrate Mother's Day with their child. 8:30 AM - 9:00 AM

Recommended Home School Connection

Monday: Universal Handwriting Page 54 and 55

Tuesday: Getting ready to read and write Page 56 and 57

Wednesday: Hand Writing My Letter L l

Thursday: Math News Here’s What I Know

Link to Weekly lesson Plan








If you have any questions Mr. Woods or I cannot answer feel free to contact the Archdiocese at (888) 227-8175 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm or Email At Cathlicschools.upk@archny.org