This week the children have been learning about life cycles of plants. This section of Sparklebox had more than enough resources to keep my children VERY BUSY this week. I just had to print, cut and laminate. Another great resource, was this cut and paste activity from Teachers' Pet . They have three differentiated versions but it's only available to premium members (£15 for a year's subscription).
Anyway, here are some pictures of what we got up to during the week:
We did an experiment to see how cress seeds would grow with or without water. It was very simple. All you need are cress seeds, cotton wool, two cups and felt tips to write on the cups. We used this Sparklebox cress booklet to document equipment used, predictions and daily growth (or lack thereof) in the two cups. At the end, there's also a section for a mini conclusion.
The children LOVED this experiment to bits. They were so excited to watch how quickly their plants grow. They've all taken them home with the suggestion of making an egg and cress sandwich over the weekend!
I split the children into 4 groups and gave them pictures (from Sparklebox) of the parts of the life cycles of either a potato plant, an apple trea, a bean plant or a dandelion. They sequenced these together and then independently drew the life cycle and wrote what was happening at each stage into their language books. Then, as a group, they made a big poster of their plant's life cycle to share at assembly next week.
Then the children used these wonderful playdough mats (again from Sparklebox) that show 6 stages of the life cycle of a flowering plant. They worked with a group to create a playdough model of the seed/plant in each stage. Then they filmed the playdough mat as they read the description of each part. Finally, they used iMovie to put them all together into one video file.
