Plants – The Teaching Texan

Monday Motivation: Making Recycled Paper

theteachingtexan — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 22:21:00 +0000

Happy Monday!

I always say that October is absolutely my favorite month of the year, but for some reason it seems to be the busiest as a teacher. Maybe it’s the first round of report cards/development records, parent conferences, or a host of other things. It’s likely the combination of it all, but I’m forcing myself to make time for things I enjoy – like blogging.

Since it’s a Monday, why not share some Monday Motivation?!

We’ve been marching through our tree unit in science for some time now. We have wrapped up the structure and function of various tree parts and moved into tree products. You can learn more about some of our other tree activities [here].

As we near the end of our tree unit, I thought it was important to talk about the impact that cutting trees down to make paper has on our world. Even more, what impact does all the paper waste have?!

After using a couple of trade books to illustrate how paper was made centuries ago and how landfills have filled with paper products (amongst other recyclable trash), we dove into creating our own recycled paper.

This may seem like an impossible stretch for a Kindergarten classroom – but I promise the kids absolutely LOVE it, and it really helps them see how much effort it takes to recycle just a small amount of paper. (We’ve been discussing using paper wisely so there is less waste, but we still have a huge tub of scrap paper. I’m sure not a single Kindergarten teacher out there is surprised about that!)

If you’d like to re-create this activity in your classroom you’ll need: scrap paper (construction paper, cardstock, newspaper, magazines, etc), a blender, felt, sponges, 2 $1 frames from Michael’s, screen (can purchase at Home Depot or Lowes), tubs filled halfway with water (big enough to submerge the frames).

I grouped my kiddos by their table groups to decide on a color for their recycled paper from the scrap paper we had available. We had construction paper, cardstock, white printer paper, and some newspaper. All 4 groups ended up mixing several colors to see what the outcome would be.

We needed all hands on deck to rip the paper into smaller pieces to make the blending process go a little more smoothly. I don’t have an exact amount of paper vs. water ratio, but I’ll say air on the side of more paper – you can always add more water to the blender AND you squeeze the water out in a future step, so you really can’t use too much.

I operated the blenders while the kiddos helped “hold” the lids on. Lets be honest, the lids weren’t going anywhere, but keeping them involved in the process was important!

After we had a nice looking “pulp,” we added a bit of glitter to the mixtures as well as some seeds. The seeds add texture AND the kiddos were excited to know they could plant the recycled paper and grow plants from it.

I poured a bit of the pulp onto each groups’ frame apparatus. These are just two $1 frames from Michael’s (one that has screen attached and one without). The screened frame acts as a sieve to allow water to drain out while the top frame acts as a mold for the paper’s shape.

After the pulp is poured, the kiddos used sponges to help flatten the pulp and push out extra water.

I helped them transfer the wet paper to a piece of felt (absorbs more of the water) by flipping it onto the felt. It takes a good day or two to completely dry, unless you use a blow dryer or iron on low heat with a barrier between it and the paper.

The finished product looks a little something like this. I know there are ways to make it thinner, flatter, etc. but for the purpose of our lesson this was just fine! Sometimes keeping things simple (as hard as it may be) is really the best.

This makes a great addition to a unit about trees, recycling, or even for Earth Day! Happy October y’all!

Monday Motivation: Exploring Trees and Bark

theteachingtexan — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 22:58:00 +0000

Welcome to the return of my weekly blog series, Monday Motivation!

Now that I’ve gotten into the “groove” so to speak at my new school, I feel like it’s time to kick off my Monday Motivation series. This series is all about lesson ideas, classroom tips, behavior management ideas, and more! Make sure to follow my blog if you’d like to keep up with this series.

On to the good stuff…

As a bit of background, we’re in the midst of our Tree Unit in science. We’ve reviewed concepts the kiddos learned in Pre-K about trees – needs, basic parts of a tree, etc. This week we dove deeper into trees by exploring tree bark. Using some hands-on centers to anchor our learning, I think my kiddos came away with a solid understanding of what bark can look like, why trees have bark, and a basic intro as to how it is formed.

Here’s a look at 4 centers focused on exploring bark. They’re easy to set up and lead to GREAT conversation!

Using modeling clay or [Crayola Model Magic], students press and roll tree cookies to create imprints of tree bark. This is a great way to explore how different types of trees create bark that make different imprints. It’s also a fantastic activity because you can leave the clay out to dry for a cute take-home piece.

A large function of tree bark is protection of the tree from outside elements (like the skin of a human). To help illustrate how tree bark keeps things out, students hypothesized how many water drops it would take for water to soak through tree bark. Then, they tested their hypotheses.

I definitely recommend using a piece of bark that is large enough to place across the top of a bowl (as in the second picture above) because it keeps the bark out of any water that runs off the bark. Kiddos can pick up the bark and see that it takes quite a few drops (and some patience) for the water to soak through to the other side of the bark. Even then, it doesn’t simply run through.

Another simple, yet effective, center is observing tree bark using touch, hearing, sound, and sight. Adding in hand lenses, or magnifying glasses, is even better. The kiddos started to notice things beyond the bark – marks on the wood layer, what looks like tunnels, etc. Perfect priming for us to move into the cambium layer and xylem/phloem next week!

Last week I went outside one day after school and took pictures of the bark of several trees right around our classroom. I printed and laminated these to create a tree bark matching activity. This center is super versatile! Students can go outside in teams (with adult supervision) to try and find the tree that each picture matches. This led to some of the best conversation of the day because students were unknowingly using great description words to justify why a certain picture match a tree or not.

I’m fortunate enough to have an assistant that was able to go outside with groups, but I know many teachers don’t have an extra set of adult eyes. Therefore, this could be done with a whole class. Additionally, you can make two sets and students can match the pictures in class OR sort them by characteristics they observe.

I hope that these centers will be useful to you or at least spark an idea for your classroom! If you have any hands-on activities for exploring trees, please share! I love new ideas!

Looking for more resources to add to your Tree Unit? Check out my [Think Green: A Non-Fiction Tree Unit] resource! It’s packed full of resources to build vocabulary, boost writing, and increase comprehension of non-fiction texts/concepts.

Monday Motivation: Spring into Science

theteachingtexan — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 20:49:00 +0000

Remember that time I said I was starting a new weekly series called “Monday Motivation,” which was to be all about lesson ideas, freebies, etc. (You may insert bewildered look). Yah… I figured as much! We recently sold our home and bought a new home, so that has consumed ~~most~~ all of my free time. The good news is that we’re all moved into the new home, so things will start settling down soon hopefully!

Today I want to share a super fun, and super easy hands-on science lesson that I did with my kiddos. The idea is nothing earth shattering and I must certainly give credit to my 6th grade science teacher for it, BUT I want to remind you of this lesson possibility none-the-less.

Our reading unit the past 2 weeks (and this current week) has been all about plants – fits so perfectly with Spring, right?? Anyway, we have been incorporating this theme into science and decided to plant our seeds to view the life cycle of plants and discuss plant parts (again, nothing earth shattering).

What we did differently is how we planted them. See, I want my kiddos to see ALL the parts of the plant during this process and it’s often, if not impossible, to see the roots once they begin growing unless you pull the plant out of the soil. So what did we do? We wrapped them in a wet (soaked) paper towel, placed them in a Ziploc baggie, and taped them to the window!

A little more back ground… I chose to use pea seeds because I thought it would be interesting to get my kiddos take on what they thought the seed was before I told them. Here’s a look at the suggestions and tally chart they came up with.

I thought for sure one of my kiddos would recognize it as a pea, but turns out my kiddos had a misconception that a vegetable (or part) could not be a seed. So, we went ahead and cleared that right up!

A helpful hint if you choose to plant peas as well, soak them in room temperature water for just a few hours immediately before planting. It helps them germinate more quickly – we planted ours on Friday and on Monday we had sprouts.

Here’s a sneak peek at our bags hanging in the window (Friday was a dreary day in Dallas for sure).

So easy to set up and so easy to unwrap and check out the parts of the seedling.

Today we went ahead and reviewed the parts of a plant, what plants need to grow, the life cycle, etc. Then we dove in for some hands-on discovery of the seedlings. Love it!

The bags had accumulated some moisture inside since we sealed them. This was perfect for continuing our very introductory discussion of the water cycle.

In a few days I plan to have the kiddos transplant them into soil and clear plastic cups so that we can continue observing the plant life cycle.

Happy Monday!