Please Label Your Parts... A Lima Bean Pictorial and Cut and Paste Freebie!

As you move along during your Plant Unit your beans will begin to grow and once they start sprouting leaves I like to create a pictorial (GLAD strategy ) in front of my students so we can talk about the parts of the plant and what it needs to grow.Use large chart paper for this. Remember to just outline your picture in light pencil so you can draw it with marker or crayons while the students are watching and you are talking and confirming their knowledge of  each part. Add the details of the picture by asking questions such as, "What does our bean need so it will grow?" and you can even invite students up to add rain, sun, soil, etc. This will keep them more engaged as you are working on the pictorial. Some teachers allow students to color the pictorial later but often I just fill in the color with scrapbooking chalk which fills it with color quickly and effectively. I love the soft look of this. Be sure to label the parts to build academic vocabulary and review this daily, adding on as you see fit.
At this time I often hand out white boards and markers and do a guided drawing of this with the children. Sometimes I will do it the following day as a review.
The follow up to this is a cut and paste that the children do independently after we have gone over the parts of the lima bean plant numerous times. They have to follow the key on the right to color it properly and this is  ideal for reviewing color words. Have you "bean" growing lima beans in your room? I hope so! Would you like this little cut and paste? Click here but please remember to leave a comment and share your planting ideas. Thanks so much.

It's "Bean" A Long Time

We have done a great deal of planting in our classroom recently which was part of a Common Core unit that I wrote with some of my teacher friends for our district. For the first time I got to actually try out my own materials and see how they worked out. This is the Greenhouse I came up with but my friend recommended trying this with corn seeds instead of Lima beans. I found out she gave me great advice! We sprayed a paper towel with water and put these in a baggie that I attached to the back of this little house. The kids loved coloring this in and were so excited to hang these in our window. We crossed our fingers because I have not had much luck with this in the past.

My teacher friends who are amazing gardeners told me to soak the beans or corn first to get the germination going. This was fun because the beans really puff up and the kids are shocked when they observe them the next day. They loved looking at this using a magnifying glass and drawing what they saw. Great activity for you to try next year or even in a summer program.

Here are the corn seeds growing in the Greenhouse and here is a clear cup with a few seeds. Obviously the soil makes a real difference. We also planted beans in soil in clear cups but I helped the students place the seed along an edge so they could see the root system! This was really great to observe. 

 The beans that we germinated on paper towels did not grow at all and only a few grew successfully in the clear cups. I was more disappointed than the kids. We do not get enough sunlight where our classroom is located. I had to check my reaction at the door because the kids were thrilled that anything grew at all! They loved watching it and checking daily for changes. Me, I think my thumb is black.

My teaching friends at another school made their greenhouse like a garden label and put the kids pictures in the middle. They stuck it in their bean plants and got fantastic results. Okay, I am not too green with envy. The idea is clever and would be so cute for Mother's Day. I love when people reinvent a great idea!

These are the observational logs we made in our classroom. I did not have the kids fill them out daily but only when we could record a real change. We did this as a whole group while I asked questions and did a guided drawing. This was a great activity and I was able to build in lots of labeling and academic vocabulary.

Here are some of the books I read to go along with this unit. We also watched a bunch of videos on YouTube that were about growing beans and corn. Next year I think I have to put these outside in the sun to get better results. Looking back we might have over watered some of our plants since the spray bottle was so exciting to use. Just sayin'. What do you like to grow in your room?

The Bean Mat is Not for Serving Dinner!

Blogger was down for a few days but I promised you this mat.
I ran each one off in a different color and laminated it for the kids.
I tried to give them contrasting cards. So click here to download your mat. Please leave a comment if you take this and follow me if you want to! Our kids love these bean mats and are learning place value. First grade teachers need to love me- right?!
This could make a great math center once they practice enough.

It was a crazy week of learning

It was a busy week in kindergarten and I had so much fun working with my teacher friends. We planted corn and lima beans with the kids in little greenhouses I created for them. Usually we put in damp paper towels and the lima bean behind the greenhouse and place it in a window. This year one of my teacher's decided to add soil and just spritz it lightly with water. She soaked the beans and popcorn ahead of time. The students were exploding with enthusiasm for this activity. The corn grew in just a few days and the kids were thrilled to see this. I was pretty over the top myself.

Once we saw that corn worked so easily the teachers decided to let their classes plant a few seeds in a clear cup so they could see the root system grow. I made the greenhouses much smaller this time, put their picture in the middle, and used a label with their name on top. I also laminated them in case they got wet .Colorful tongue depressors are just the right size to use as the stick. This made an adorable garden marker. I got this idea from a group of teachers I love at another school who did not have space for the big greenhouses and put these outside in the sun. I thought this was precious and so did my teacher friend. These went home with the kids after Open House. Parents were told to take pictures of their plant's progress. The kids were over the moon with excitement.

Students also worked on a cut and paste little book called My Bean Garden which I created to teach what is needed for a seed to grow. They could not wait to show me their beautiful work. I loved listening to them read the words. The teacher also wanted an emergent reader about spring which the students completed with ease and many could also read. Spring is blooming in this classroom for sure.

My teacher friend loves to grow butterflies in the room at this time of the year and students watch this process with amazement. Naturally, I made them a sight word game with butterflies and they are having so much fun with this. Watch out because I have a flower hiding behind a more challenging word!

This week I better work on an emergent reader about butterflies just to keep up with all the learning going on in this classroom. 
What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day and Spring? Any ideas for me to add into the mix? What are you growing?

"Bean There, Done That" Freebie You Will Love

Be sure to tape your baggie to the back of the greenhouse. It fits perfectly in the window opening that you have cut out. 

This was so much fun to do with our kindergarten students and they are having a blast watching these grow in their personal greenhouse. They look precious hanging up in the windows at our school. Be sure to soak your beans overnight to get fast germination and great results. Remember that 5 year olds have no patience to wait. We even looked at the baby inside of a bean after soaking it overnight and the children were fascinated with this science activity. I promise that you cannot kill these if you follow these directions and they get plenty of sun. Everyone has a green thumb in kindergarten! Now go try this. You can grab my little house here but please leave a comment and become a follower. What do you think of this?

Don't Spill the Beans: Beginning Place Value Work for Kinders

I posted about these ten sticks a few months ago but I thought it was worth bringing back when talking about Chapter 6 of MWS. Once the kids understand the teen numbers and have worked on building them with manipulatives this can be a great activity for teaching place value. I glued them down with Elmers on colored tongue depressors and had some moms make me tons of them to use in small group work. Now I realize these would make a great math work station.

Each student had their own laminated mat to work on. Our students need to be able to build tens and ones up to 30 and this mat provided the practice many of them needed. They each got their own baggie of numbers from 1-30. Each set was a different color to avoid having children mix them up. This was super successful and the kids looked forward to our bean activities. Would you like the mat?  Download it here. You can run these off in a variety of colors too!

Some teachers allow students to count out 10 beans and glue them on a stick themselves but I was not loving that idea too much. If you have a small class... go for it. 

Eventually I decided to make a recording sheet to see if they could do this on a more independent level and it looked something like this:

What do you think of this strategy? Maybe you can try it next year. 

If you want this record sheet  Pick it up here! Don't forget to leave a comment and follow me if you want to be friends!

Now you are all set to go....hummmm maybe we need a little book for more practice. What do you think?

Meet A Math Wizard at Four

April from  primarylearninglogs.blogspot.com  was generous enough to let me share these adorable pictures of her son building numbers using my bean sticks and mat. He is attending kindergarten in the fall but loves "BIG" numbers so he requested a more difficult mat. So, a big shout-out to my friend April in Vermont for allowing me to post this. I love how Grandpa gets involved in this too! I will post a new mat for my Vermont buddies and if you have any pictures using my materials please let me know. I would love to see them.

Did You Hear Me Scream Today?

You have to admit this is ridiculous. I was not in my classroom today because we had a report card day and after school I went into the room to see what it looked like after the sub. I noticed the pumpkin plant and almost had a stroke . I sent it home with one of my students over Thanksgiving and freaked out when I saw it! OMG .
I am so in love with this project and the results. This might be the longest time any plant has survived that has been in my care. Did you hear me scream ? Yup, not enough excitement in my life right now but things are picking up. Tomorrow I am expecting a bean stalk climbing up the side of the school.

Are You Full of Beans In Kindergarten? Grab this freebie!

Now that California teachers are implementing the Common Core our perspective has shifted and we are making certain strategies a part of our daily teaching. Many kindergarten teachers love to grow lima beans in baggies or in soil but now we want our students to record their observations (through drawings, labels, and writing) and to document this on a daily basis. This is a flip book that is generic since the students write in the day on the front. In my classroom I might start them off with guided drawing and label the parts as a group but this would be easy to differentiate depending on the skills of your children. Some teachers choose to plant their bean in soil (just one) and the entire class observes the same plant. You have lots of choices with this but I thought this little log would be useful for you. It is 2 pages and you run it back to back so students know where to put their drawing each day.

I worked with a team of wonderful,primary teachers on a unit of study for our district that reflects the CCSS and created this log for our district teachers to use. I hope they find it useful. Click on the picture to grab this item for your classroom. Be sure to check out the Greenhouse freebie posted too! I love comments if you can spare the time. Have a great Sunday friends.

Fran