Green Thumb?

Here's a little peak into our short plant unit...

I have to admit--I do not have a green thumb. I don't even have a green thumbnail. Not even a freckle. I kill any living green thing that comes into my house. So I was very hesitant to do any actual planting with my kiddos, but I decided to give it a try anyways!

First we read the book "Once Upon a Seed" and talked about how seeds grow. We labelled this bubble map with all the things it needs: air, water, light, heat, and soil. You can download the map by clicking on the picture below.

*Border from Ginger Snaps Art*

Then we made our little ziplock green houses. I got these cute ones from Kelly's Spring Fever unit, over at Beg Borrow Steal. She has some awesome activities in her unit!

That cute poster is from Reagan over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits! 

You can download it for free from here. 

Now, I thought the ziplock bag greenhouse was a GREAT idea! And I read the directions very carefully... but we just could not get those suckers to sprout! :(

So I let them take their greenhouses home. Some said they tried to plant them in the garden. Maybe they'll have better luck there!

I still didn't want to give up on the planting idea, so I decided to try the ol' cup and soil method. I bought some new seeds--peas this time! And I bought some extra-enriched, super duper potting soil. That's gotta help, right? Well we planted our little seeds in the soil, watered them, placed them by our sunny windows, and started the wait.

After a few days of waiting patiently.... TA DA! Green spouts!

Almost all of them have sprouted up so far. That is super exciting! Everyday after recess, the kids water their plants and make notes/draw pictures in their seed journals {from Reagan's Seed to Plant unit}.

We also read the book "Oh say can you seed?" and talked about different types of plants. We made a large map of all the plants we could think of.

We also made these cute flowers and labeleld the parts of the flower, as well as it's needs. This came from the lovely ladies at Made for 1st Grade in their Plants Literature & Art Unit.

Then we ended the unit talking about living and nonliving things. First we read the book "What's Alive?" Then we filled in this chart to see if things were living or nonliving. We went through the questions at the top and put either a check or an x in the box.

Then we did a picture sort together in the pocket chart. You can download the cards here.

We keep watching and writing about our plants to see how they grow and change each day!