Garden Lessons: Plant Parts- Part 3: STEMS! (3rd Grade)
Grade(s): 3rd
Lesson Objective(s): Students learn all about stems and their function in the plant
Ohio Curriculum Standard: Individuals of the same kind differ in their traits and sometimes the differences give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing; Organisms have different structures and behaviors that serve different functions.
Supplies Needed
“Plant Parts” Workbooks
Plants coloring pages
scissors
glue
Pencils
plates
Celery & Asparagus (1 bunch of each)
Knife, cutting board
Poster of Plant Parts (label as go along)
hand sanitizer
Harmonica
Introduction (5 mins):
Get out Plant Parts workbooks. Review: What plant part did we learn about last week? What does that plant part DO?
Using students’ explanation, write class description of “ROOTS” on poster
the next part of the plant we’ll be learning about is STEMS
Activity (20 mins):
Students read paragraph about stems along with teacher
Give students a few minutes to do the fill-in-the-blank part of the booklet
ask after: what would happen if we cut off the stem of the plant? What might happen if the stem gets damaged?
Everyone gets slices of celery & asparagus, and the teacher shows what whole celery & whole asparagus looks like, too
In the venn diagram section of their workbooks, label one side “celery” and the other “asparagus”
Have students work in their table groups on making a venn diagram for the stems
some ideas for compare/contrast: size, texture, shape, color, taste, type of vegetable, etc.
Once their venn Diagram has at least 2 things in each of the three categories, they are welcome to try the snack: asparagus & celery!
Finally, what other STEM vegetables do we eat or use?
Students can cut out examples from their coloring pages & color them (maybe go through the items as a class first, circling the items we need to cut out for the “roots” section)
encourage them to think of other stems we eat- draw them in the workbook!