PLANTS

Unit plan Contextual Factors

Cheyenne Mellor ELED 3550 Spring 2012

DIXIE STATE COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION UNIT PLAN TEMPLATE Semesters 1& 2
Teacher Candidate: Cheyenne Mellor Content: Plants Grade: 5

Step 1 DESIRED RESULTS

A. Utah State Core Curriculum Standard Science Standard 4-Life Science: Students will gain an understanding of life science through the study of changes in organisms over time and the nature of living things. B. Enduring Understanding/Big Idea Plants are made up of different parts Plants need sun, energy, soil, and air to grow. C. Concepts C1- Science 4:2:B Plants are made up of roots, stems, leaves, flowers, trunk etc C2- Science 4:1b-c Plants start out small and grow into adult plants. Change is sometimes slow and sometimes fast C3- Science 4:1a- Know how to construct questions, give reasons, and share findings about living things. D. Skills S1- Art 3:3d- Make representations of things observed in the environment S2- K.SL.5-Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions as desired, to provide additional detail. S3- K.L.2ab- Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I. Recognize and name punctuation. S4-K.MD.1- Describe measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight. Describe several measurable attributes of a single object. S5-K.RIT.2-With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of texts. E. Essential Questions/Guiding Questions What does a plant need in order to live and grow? What kinds of plants did you see as you observed the environment? What are the different parts of a plant? What are these different parts used for? How long do you think it would take for this seed to grow into a small plant? What would you draw to illustrate what we just read? What punctuation mark should you use at the end of your sentence? Did you start your sentence with a capital?

Step 2 ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE

C1-Students will label different parts of a plant C2-Students observe their own plant over two weeks and then write a sentence about what they saw. C3- Students will write a sentence about their reasoning of what they saw.

S1- Students will draw and label a picture of a plant that they observed outside. S2- Students illustrates what happened in a story by drawing a picture with details. S3-Students will write a sentence to summarize the story on trees. I will look for correct capitalization and punctuation S4-When plants are grown, students will describe two different parts of the plant that can be measured. S5- After reading Tree, tell me, students will explain main points and will write one sentence on their favorite. Step 3 INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES & LEARNING ACTIVITIES Lesson 1: Parts of plants-Class reads From seed to plant to learn about the parts of plants in order to create their book on plants. Each student separates his real flower into a leaf, stem, root, and pedal to add to their plant book. (C1) Lesson 2: What plants need to grow- Review From seed to plant and discuss what a plant needs in order to grow. Students create an art project that illustrates these needs.(C2) Lesson 3: Planting real seed- Class as a whole will make predictions and ask questions about planting a real seed. Each student will follow directions to plant their own seed. (C3) Lesson 4: Observations- Students will observe plants that are outside of the school. They will then draw a picture of a plant they observed and label the different parts. (S1) Lesson 5: Trees- Class reads Tell me, Tree and write one sentence about something they learned, using correct punctuation and capitalizations. They also will provide an illustration for their sentence. (S2, S3, S5) Lesson 6: Our real plants have grown- After plants have been growing for two weeks, they will measure height of stem and width of leaves. They will find that their plant grew at a different rate than the other plants. (S4)
Adapted from: McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2005). Understanding by design, 2nd ed. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.; Ainsworth, L. (2003). Unwrapping the standards: A simple process to make standards manageable. Denver, CO: Advanced Learning Press.

Contextual factors of Sandstone Elementary: Mrs. Mellor teaches Kindergarten at Sandstone Elementary school, which is in the Washington school district in St. George, Utah. At this school, there are 602 students attending grades kindergarten through fifth grade. Sandstone made Adequate Yearly Progress in 2011 by achieving the minimum levels of improvement determined by the state of Utah in terms of student performance and other accountability measures. In 2011, there were 26 students per full-time teacher, while the state average was one teacher to 24 students. Ethnic Group (Percentage is off because more
than one could be chosen)

Percentage 91% 16% 5% 2% 2%

White Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander Black American Indian/ Alaskan Native Other Demographics of Sandstone Elementary Female Male Free Lunch Reduced Lunch Resource ELL ELL fluent Disadvantaged Minority Immigrant 1 year +

293 309 285 68 51 63 41 118 9

***Please note: Not all statistics represent actual data. Some is taken from Washington County school district, some from my current 5th grade class, and some facts are even made up.

Contextual factors of Mrs. Mellors Kindergarten class

Classroom characteristics Total Students Female Male ELL students Gifted ADHD Behavior issues Reading interventions IEP

Number of students 24 10 14 2 3 2 2 2 1

***Please note: Not all statistics represent actual data. Some is taken from Washington County school district, some from my current 5th grade class, and some facts are even made up.

Sources/References:
I retrieved standards from both UEN.ORG and SCHOOLS.UTAH.GOV Some of my lesson ideas came from Miss. Godfrey from Heritage Elementary. Although I used ideas from a variety of sources for some of my lessons, all of them are created and written in my own words.

Unit Rationale
I developed this unit because it is important for students to learn about their environment. There are many fun plant activities that will keep students engaged. These science lessons are integrated with math, language, reading, visual arts, and physical activities. The skills learned in this unit will increase students knowledge and skills in a variety of ways. Language skills Labeling plant parts Capitalization Punctuation Retell parts of a given story Explanatory sentences Summary sentences Math Describe two measurable parts of a plant Graphing plant growth (If we have time)

Arts Reading From plant to seed by Gail Gibbins Tell me, Tree by Gail Gibbins Draw a picture to add detail to text. Create a drawing of a plant you observed. Create this chart using scissors, crayons and glue:

Plants

Science Different parts of plants What plants need in order to grow. Construct questions, give reasons and share findings about plants. Predicting Physical Activity Observing the outdoors Plant scavenger hunt (If time allows)