The Potential of Plants

Robert Moton Charter School, Kindergarten | ELA

Mr. Jasper

Over the past several weeks in both Mrs. Wiltz and Mrs. Smiths’ Kindergarten classes we are learning about plants. We reviewed the parts of a plant, how plants grow, and ways that plants help people. I thought it would be neat for the students to see a plant’s life cycle from start to finish, so I ordered small planting kits through KidSmart and they arrived within a few days. I also ordered small journals for the kids to document the process and keep track of the things they learn along the way.

We planted radishes, lettuce, carrots, basil, sunflowers, and a few others as a class. That same day the students received their journals. Once a week we pull out our plant journals and document the growth we see with the date and a small illustration. This particular exercise has also crossed over into the next series of lessons which highlight what kind of crops farmers grow and how plants are harvested from farms so that people can enjoy them.

As a way to emphasize to the students that plants need three very important things to survive (sunlight, water, and oxygen), we decided to plant our seeds into 4 separately grouped pots:

1. One pot would get sunlight, but no water
2. A second pot would get water, but no sunlight.
3. A third pot would get both water and sunlight.
4. And a fourth pot would not get either water or sunlight.

After the first week, lo and behold we had a sprout! Our plants are currently growing in their respective rooms and the students are always very excited to look and see what is inside. I am hoping that by the end of the semester we will have filled our journals and successfully grown our plants to the point of harvest.