Lesson #1 Plant Parts and Functions

Today, the students learned the names of the four parts of a plant: roots, stem, leaves, and flower. We read the poem Tommy by Gwendolyn Brooks to begin the lesson. This poem was about a little boy who planted a seed and took care of it by watering it and one day it grew into a plant. We discussed the poem as a class and I was able to assess how much background knowledge the students already had on plants.
The students were given a handout that allowed them to label the parts of the plant and the other side contained the parts and their functions. I showed the students a variety of pictures from Google Images and Flickr.com of roots, stems, leaves, and flowers so that they could see that there are many variations of these parts.
With a partner, the students made observations about two live plants. They drew the plants in their science notebooks and after they made their observations, they posted them on our Science Class Blog.


Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7202153@N03/487290847/sizes/s/in/photostream/