Thinking About Gardening, Plants and Bringing On Spring!

In the Grade 3 curriculum here in Ontario we study plants and soil, and I love it. I've had so much fun study plants, planting seeds, and digging in the soil with my students.

Here's a couple sites if you are interested in square foot gardening at home or with your students:
Square Foot Gardening

Canadian Gardening

Last year, we made a trip to the bookstore to pick up a few books to help with our learning. The first on our list was Square Foot Gardening with Kids by Mel Bartholomew. He also has a number of adult versions that provide a great deal of information about this type of gardening. What I liked best about this book was that it had a bunch of science explanations, diagrams and activities that could be used to integrate home and school gardening.

I love using picture books to help reinforce the ideas we are learning about in Science, here are some good ones.

And Then It's Spring

This book is written in verse and the illustrations are super cute. I love that it totally matches everyone's feelings right now of waiting, waiting, waiting for all the brown and yucky to finally turn to green!

The Tiny Seed

This book is sooooo cute! It details the journey of a seed through the seasons until it finally lands on the ground and is able to grow. In true Eric Carle fashion the illustrations are amazing and my daughter has fallen in love with this book. We've already read it three times since yesterday!

Tom's Tree

I am in love with this book! Tom plants a seed. Then he waits, and imagines, and waits and imagines....but the tree takes so long to grow that Tom grows up first!

The ending though...so sweet and touching. A must read.

If You Hold a Seed

The illustrations in this book are incredible. Beautiful! The story that goes along with it is inspiring and could be used for many activities in the classroom not just plants and science.

I highly recommend this one!

I still have a few more books on my wish list....but I didn't want to overwhelm my husband by spending so much all in one day!

Once There Was a Seed

Isabella's Garden

And the Good Brown Earth

How Does a Seed Grow?

I'm also looking into buying some butterfly larvae that we can watch grow, build a chrysalis, and emerge as a butterfly! This spring is going to be fun.

I'd love to hear about any experiences people have had growing food and gardening with kids or raising butterflies. The more tips the better!

Do you have a great plants, seeds or butterfly product I just have to see? Leave me a comment and I'll be sure to check it out. 

All photos are taken from the Chapters.Indigo website. 

National Sweater Day

My class has taken on the challenge of organizing the Spirit Days at my school this year. 

We are using it as a year long data management project and obviously as a way to promote school spirit and to have a little fun.

Last week when the teacher who is in charge of the Green Club at my school asked if we could add in an extra spirit day to help our the Green Club of course my answer was YES! 

And what a fun, educational spirit day it's going to be.

If you haven't yet visited the World Wildlife Fund's page- 

Schools for Living Planet 

then I suggest you head over there now! 

When you click on the About chick let this is what you will find-

WWF-Canada's Schools for a Living Planet program empowers educators and students of all ages with the tools and resources they need to lead us into a sustainable future. Schools for a Living Planet is grounded in the principles that make WWF a global success — including strong science and a focus on solutions.

WWF has developed free, curriculum-linked lesson plans for elementary teachers to download and integrate into their classrooms. These lesson plans connect directly to conservation priorities in Canada's forests, lakes and Arctic. Educators can take their students' learning beyond the classroom by participating in WWF events, like Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup.    

Secondary and post-secondary students can use Schools for a Living Planet toolkits to make an impact through WWF events like National Sweater Day, Earth Hour and Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. Students can get involved as individuals or engage their school's WWF Club / environmental club to take part. 

Join the Schools for a Living Planet community and learn how you can inspire your classrooms and classmates to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature!

Pretty good, right?

The event that my class is going to be organizing is

National Sweater Day.

After I introduced it to my class we spent some time brainstorming all the reasons why this would be a good event to be involved it and went through the necessary information that we would like to share with the school. I was very happy to see how excited my class was about this.

Then they broke off into pairs and started to gather ideas for a promotional poster 

(Notice the tie-in to media literacy! Go integrated teaching!)

I am excited to see where this idea takes us as I would like to move forward with it as a collaborative inquiry project. It'll be interesting to see what my Grade 3's come up with for sure.

Some ideas I had that I'm hoping we can work in:

- used sweater/sweatshirt drive

- PSA campaign about the dangers of greenhouse gases

- Bumper sticker creation (visual art integration)

If you are planning to participate in National Sweater Day or a similar event to raise awareness about energy conservation in your school/community I'd love to hear more about it.

And, I promise I'll be back soon with an update on our progress.

Soils in the Environment Learning Goal Statements and Assessment Strategies (New Product! Plus the Boost Sale)

 My newest product is in my TPT store and just in time for the BOOST Back to School Sale!

Here in Ontario we study Soils in the Environment as part of the Grade 3 curriculum. I know a lot of my American teacher/blogger friends teach about soils as well because I've seen so many great posts, pinned wonderful ideas on Pinterest and purchased your products on TPT! 

This product  is a great companion to your soils unit.

It contains: 

- all of the Big Ideas related to Soils and the Environment from the Ontario Science Curriculum

- the specific expectations re-written in student-friendly language as "I can..." statements. These can be posted on a bulletin board or in your room as you teach through the unit. 

- Individual Student Learning Goal Statement Cards that can be glued into a science notebook or used with the Learning Goal Reflection sheets that are included in this pack

- three different Learning Goal Reflection pages (2 are pictured here)

- Written Learning Goal Reflection, Glow and Grow and Postcards for Learning- lots of different ways to differentiate and help your students self-assess in Science

If you haven't already checked out my Growth and Changes in Plants Learning Goals Pack click here to check it out!

Click on the image to head straight to my TPT store.

Right now this new product, as well as everything else is on sale in my store for the BOOST Back to School Sale.

Don't forget to use the promo code BOOST to get all the deals!

Growth and Changes in Plants- Learning Goal Cards and Assessment Strategies

I have a great new product for you all in my TPT store. It's the biggest product I've made yet and I'm pretty excited about it.

Here in Ontario we study Growth and Changes in Plants as part of the Grade 3 curriculum. I know a lot of my American teacher/blogger friends teach about plants as well because I've seen so many great posts, pinned wonderful ideas on Pinterest and purchased your products on TPT! 

So really this product is for everyone!

If you click on the image below you will see an outline of what this resource contains...and I've included a picture of each item in this post so keep reading!

First up, we have the Big Ideas about Growth and Changes in Plants. These can all be displayed at the beginning of a unit or as you move through the Big Ideas. 

I also think it would make a great review task at the end of your unit to have your students sort the Specific Expectation under the Big Idea headings where they fit the best. 

I designed this poster to go on the bulletin board where the learning goals will be displayed. 

There are many different ways to use the learning goal cards. They can be used to display the goal of the current lesson or as an accumulation of the goals you have covered already. 

Below is an example of the learning goal cards. Each one as been paraphrased from the Ontario Curriculum so it is more student-friendly. I have also included the number that correlates with the specific expectation as they are found in the Ontario curriculum.

**NON-ONTARIO TEACHERS:  If you are interested in these learning goal cards but do not want the number that correlates with the Ontario Curriculum, please contact me. I can make a set without the numbers if there is any interest in that!**

Also included in this pack are individual copies of each of the learning goals. These can glued into your student's notebooks to identify the learning goal of a note or activity. They can be used as prompts for a Science Journal or with the assessment tasks that are also in the pack! (Yes, there is more!!)

I have included three of my favourite self-assessment tasks in this pack. The best past is that they can be used with any Science curriculum...so you will get a tonne of use out of these, year after year.

Click on each of the images below to see the assessment task up close. 

Well, I hope you are as excited as I am about this Growth and Changes in Plants "I can..." Big Ideas and Learning Statements Pack. 

Please click on the image below to head over to my TPT store to buy your copy!

I am already working on a similar package for the other 3 Science Units in the Grade 3 curriculum as well as the other subject areas. If you like what you see and would like a specific curriculum set of learning goals to be created please contact me!

Movies That Get Brains Moving!

Brenda from Primary Inspired is hosting a super fun linky...all about movies!!

I just learned about MathStory.com from one of the teachers in my online Math Additional Qualifications course. I haven't used it in my classroom but I spent sometime looking around and there are some great resources, including MUSIC VIDEOS, that you'll want to use in your class. What a great way to hook students into a lesson. 

My favourite movies for Science are The Magic School Bus videos!

My school board has all the videos on a database for us to access easily, but you can also find most of them on Youtube. I love how the visually present complex science topics to the students and help them to understand the ideas we are studying. 

What are your favourite movies? Link up with Brenda!!

Frayer Model Freebie

I have a quick freebie for you tonight. I have been using the Frayer Model for many years in my classroom, mostly when I taught the upper grades. Now that we are a few weeks into the school year I decided to see if my Grade 3's were ready to use them as well!

This is the small one that I use for my student's math journals.

Small Frayer Model- blank

This is a larger one that I use for notes in classes like Social Studies and Science.

Large Frayer Model- blank

This is a subject specific one that my students and I used in our Social Studies unit on Urban and Rural Communities.

Urban and Rural Frayer Model

I think Frayer models make for great notes as it gives students a written definition, examples and a visual reminder of the concept. 

Hope you find it useful!

Font: Rowdy Spunky from Rowdy in Room 300

Foldables Week: Science Wednesday

I am not teaching Science this year so I am really hoping there are lots of you out there who are interested in foldables for Science and link up!! Here are a few that I did find on my searches...

Vocabulary/ Scientific Method from My Science Lessons Blog

Ocean Ecosystem Foldable from Nicolette Speziale

Free foldables from Science Inquirer

Plus don't forget to check out these blogs that have volunteered to contribute to Foldables Week for Science when you get a chance...

Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes

The Teacher's Cauldron

Jack of All Trades


Charmed in Third Grade

Classic Crafter

If you have a foldables idea that is related to Science and would like me to post about it please leave a comment below with a link to your blog post and I will share your great foldables as well.

Coming up tomorrow:

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Habitats and Communities Game

I know science week was last week...but I am not teaching my own science this year and really didn't have anything to contribute UNTIL I went on a field trip with my class yesterday. We went to an outdoor education centre run by my school board as part of my teaching partner's Science program. The kids has a great time being outside, constructing a grouse shelter, feeding chickadees, and petting a snake (GROSS!). My favourite part was the game we played at the end of the day.... Squirrel Wars!!

The basic premise is that the students become squirrels. In our case they were divided into 2 different types of squirrels- Red Squirrels and Grey/Black Squirrels. After a short lesson about the behavioural adaptations of the two squirrels we headed out to the woods to play. Here's how it all worked...

Red Squirrels- These squirrels are small, feisty and aggressive. They hide all their nuts in one place and will fight any animal that comes near their stash. The students in this group were given 12 beans (no nuts of course! allergies!!) and instructed to hide all their beans in one spot in the woods.

Grey/Black Squirrels- These squirrels are bigger and more laid back. They hide their nuts in multiple places and don't get too upset when one stash is stolen by another animal. These students were instructed to hid their beans in many different places in the woods.

So once the students had hidden their beans they returned back to home base. The guide talked a little about how the squirrels have to fight to survive the winter by storing and finding their food. In January when it's just starting to get cold here in Ontario they are still pretty strong so the students needed to go back out into the woods and find three of their beans. They were given a time limit and anyone that didn't return was considered "frozen" by the winter and dead (a little brutal but part of real life). Also, any student that didn't return with three beans didn't survive either. We tacked the alive and dead squirrels for both the Red and Grey/Black groups (yeah, data management integration) in order to see which type of behaviour was more successful.

This continued for February where the students had to bring back four beans, and then March where they had to bring back the final five beans. It was very interesting to see that some students brought back more beans then they were asked to in the first 2 rounds and then they didn't have enough food/beans to survive the rest of the winter. Also many students forgot or had their beans stolen and also didn't survive the winter. We played a few rounds of this game and then the guide introduced the idea of scavengers (yeah food webs/chains!). Two students became a chipmunk and a blue jay and were instructed to steal the squirrel's food stores.

Here is the chart used to keep score for the game- The first chart shows the results of the game played by my class and the second is a blank for your own use. The data can be used to create a variety of graphs after the game as been played and used for further discussion of how the behavioural adaptations of the two squirrels affected their survival.

All in all it was a great day at the field centre and I think my students really learned a lot from the experience. I hope this all makes sense for you in case you are interested in playing the game. I think that it is easily modified to fit animals in your region should you be lucky enough to live where squirrels do not!! LOL...I am not a huge fan of them myself.

Happy Science Learning!

Science Week is Coming!!