SCI1-OI7-GQ1-LO1-KO2-U: Recording data helps ensure observations can be referenced in the…

Plants and Seeds: What Does a Seed Need? Grade 1

What's hiding inside a bean, and what does it need to wake up and grow? Young scientists open soaked seeds, sprout beans in bags and watch seedlings bend to find the light.

• What's inside a seed? 35–45 min

  Children compare a hard dry lima bean with one soaked overnight, then gently peel and open the soaked bean to find the tiny baby plant and its food store. They draw and label what they find and explain it with "I think… because I saw…"

• What does a seed need to grow? Day 1: 40 min. Then 5–10 min check-ins for 7 to 10 days, and a 25 min wrap-up

  Each team puts beans in three zip bags: wet in the light, wet in a dark cupboard, and dry. Over 7 to 10 days children keep a picture journal and find out that a seed needs water to start growing, and that light matters once the little plant is up.

• Why do plants grow toward the window? Day 1: 40 min. Then 5 min check-ins for 1 to 2 weeks, and a 20 min wrap-up

  Children turn young bean plants away from a window and watch them bend back toward the light, and they set a seedling inside a shoebox maze to see if it can find its way out. They explain that plants need light and grow toward it.

Weather Watchers: What Will the Sky Do Today? Grades K–2

Is it sunny, windy or wet today, and how can we tell? Young scientists keep a class weather chart for two weeks, build wind socks to catch the wind and make a rain gauge from a bottle to measure the rain.

• What's the weather like today? 30 min to start, 5 min a day for two weeks, 30 min to graph

  Children look at the sky at the same time every school day for two weeks and add a weather picture to a big class chart. Then they count the sunny, cloudy, rainy and snowy days, build a bar graph together and use it to say what kind of weather their two weeks had.

• Which way is the wind blowing? 40–45 min, plus 5 min on two or three other days

  Children make a paper-plate wind sock with crepe-paper streamers and take it into the schoolyard to see which way the wind blows and how strong it is. They find out that we can't see wind, but we can see what it does, and they sort days into calm, breezy and windy.

• How much rain fell? 40 min, plus 5 min a day for a week

  Teams build a rain gauge from a clear, straight-sided bottle with a ruler taped on, set it outside and measure the rain each day for a week. On a dry week they make a watering-can 'storm' instead, and test what happens when rain lands on grass, soil and pavement.

Printable practice for SCI1-OI7-GQ1-LO1-KO2-U

• Weather Watchers: What Will the Sky Do Today? workbook included with the unit

  3 English-support pages, 3 practice pages, 3 readings, 1 word wall, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.

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