Marina Brandle Science

Mrs. Price 3rd grade

Indiana Wesleyan University

Elementary Education Lesson Plan
Lesson Rationale
Students will need to develop an understanding of the workings of plants. Aside from the
basic ability to grow plants, students will need this foundation as they further their study into
science, specifically biology.
Readiness
I. Goals/Objectives/Standard(s)
A. Goal(s)— Students will conduct an ongoing investigation into the lives of plants
and what they need to survive.
B. Objectives:
 Students will generate questions about plants and what their basic needs are to
grow and develop.
 Students will plant seeds and place plants according to their hypotheses about
the plants’ needs.
 Students will work together make predictions and draw conclusions.
C. Standard:
 3.LS.2 Plan and conduct an investigation to determine the basic needs of plants
to grow, develop, and reproduce.
 SEPS.3 Constructing and performing investigations
 SEPS.6 Constructing explanations (for science)
 3.W.1 Write routinely over a variety of time frames and for a range of
discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences; apply reading standards to
write in response to literature and nonfiction texts.
II. Management
 Materials:
o Potted plants
 One dead/dying
 One alive/blooming
o Seeds
 Pots
 Soil
 Fertilizer
 Watering Can
 Window
o Plant Observation Journals
o Anchor Chart(s)
o Markers
 Time: 3-4 weeks
o Anticipatory set: 2 minutes
Marina Brandle Science
Mrs. Price 3rd grade

o Mini Lesson: 5-10 minutes

o Observations: 1-3 times a week, depending on plants’ development. For each
major change, they will write a journal entry along with the basic recording (as
seen in attached worksheet)
o Closure: 10-15 minutes
 Space:
o Students will be seated at their desks/tables unless otherwise instructed. Both are
present in the classroom, tables sit approximately four students while desks sit
individual students.
o When given instructions to do so, children will be out of their seats observing the
plants we’ve placed in the classroom.
 Behavior:
o Students will be given one verbal warning prior to further action.
o Students will be reminded of DoJo points (reward/discipline system) if behavior
becomes problematic.
o “I’m waiting,” or “I’ll wait,” can be stated firmly to remind students to stop
talking and focus their attention on me.
III. Anticipatory Set
 I will bring in two potted plants, one alive and blooming and the other dying and
shriveled.
o I planted these plants from seeds and they grew and grew and grew! I was so
excited—but then, this one started to look kind of sad. The next thing I knew, it
was dying and I tried giving it more water. Then I thought maybe I watered it too
much, so I didn’t give it any water. Now, here we are and I have a dead plant. I
realized that I didn’t put very much effort into taking care of these plants. I
thought I could bring them into our classroom today and show you the problem I
was having. I believe that working together we could get better results than I got
all by myself. What do you think?
IV. Purpose Statement
 “Today we are going to be learning about what plants need to grow! This is important so
that we can help the plants around us survive and blossom!

PLAN FOR INSTRUCTION

V. Adaptation to Diverse Students—
 If necessary, I will provide further prompting for answering my questions.
 For writing, sentence clozes and prompts will be used to better enable students with
writing difficulties to participate in the journaling activities.
 For some students, I might walk them through the questions one by one so that they can
articulate their answers directly to me, considering they may not be able to communicate
Marina Brandle Science
Mrs. Price 3rd grade

it well in writing. If necessary, they could also use a program like Clips to record their
answers.
VI. Lesson Presentation (Input/Output)
 A mini lesson will be conducted in which I ask students, what do plants need to grow and
develop? We will create an anchor chart as a class with our predictions.
 We will plant 4 potted seeds. One in the window, one in a closet or dimly lit area, one
with fertilizer in a neutral area, and one without fertilizer in a neutral area.
 Students will determine the primary needs of a plant (ie sunlight, water, food). They will
record these predictions in their journals.
 Journals will be fitted with multiple pages for each plant labeled and/or color coded to
differentiate. Journals will also be fitted with lined pages for journal entries.
VII. Check for Understanding
 During each observation, I will prompt students with open ended questions to prod their
thinking, ie What do you see happening? Does this support our hypothesis? What do you
think will happen next week? Do you think we should change the way we are caring for
plants—why or why not?
 After each observation, students will be paired for a variation of Think-Pair-Share. They
will discuss their findings and be prepared to share with the class.
 During closure, I will discuss with the class what they learned and assess understanding
at that time.
VIII. Review Learning outcomes / Closure
 Closure: At the end of the final week, I will lead a discussion with our original anchor
chart on hand and we will explain our findings.
o Originally, we thought that plants needed these things to survive [indicate to
anchor chart]. Do we agree with our original hypothesis? [allow for answers]
Why? Why not? What parts do you agree with? Which parts do you think were
wrong? If we were to make a new anchor chart what would be on it? On the last
pages of your journal, you will make your own anchor chart and write a journal
entry about what you discovered about plants through our investigation.
o
PLAN FOR ASSESSMENT
 Formative assessment:
o I will use questioning to assess the progression of students’ understanding.
o The plant observation journals will be an ongoing formative assessment of
students’ progression and understanding.
 Summative assessment:
o Students first and final journal entries will be written on their hypotheses and
conclusions of what exactly plants need to grow and develop. These entries will
Marina Brandle Science
Mrs. Price 3rd grade

help me to assess students’ growth and ultimate understanding by the end of the
investigation.

REFLECTION AND POST-LESSON ANALYSIS

1. How many students achieved the lesson objective(s)? For those who did not, why not?
2. What were my strengths and weaknesses?
3. How should I alter this lesson?
4. How would I pace it differently?
5. Were all students actively participating? If not, why not?
6. What adjustments did I make to reach varied learning styles and ability levels?
7. Were there any points of confusion during the lesson? How could you alter and better
clarify those moments?
8. Based on the results would you choose seeds differently?
9. What would you change about the initial questioning as a class?
10. Did students successfully communicate their findings? Why or why not?
Marina Brandle Science
Mrs. Price 3rd grade