Planting Gold with Potatoes Science and Social Studies Connections

I like to start with a book called What's For Lunch...Potatoes by Claire Llewellyn. 

Planting Potatoes is a great way to show your students how their food grows. They can be easily grown in a garbage can or even a laundry basket! I first started planting potatoes outdoors six years ago when I got tired of the FOSS Plant unit planting potatoes in a cup, so why not create a school garden to extend our learning. What we found by planting a garden helped us realize that planting a seed is magic! Not only that, learning that food doesn't all come from a seed from a seed pack is pretty neat, too!

Don't want to plant potatoes? That is okay, too. These lessons can be taught with a bag of potatoes from the grocery store. Want to extend the concept to connecting the Westward Movement and gold rush...keep reading because simulations are perfect for cross curricular activities and getting kids up and moving!

Getting Started: 
What do you need for an introduction potato activity? Seed potatoes and learning stations. Let's get growing!


Next, you can show a little video that shows the process of how they can grow potatoes at home or at school.

Using Potatoes to Learn Science:
Here, we go...now it's time for students to learn about the life cycle of the plant, how it gets from field to fork and also different ways that we eat potatoes. I used  this great site when I first got started it has a ton of resources and ideas: Growing Your Own Potatoes Link

Science Stations Potato Pack

 We use the list we generate in class usually getting over 20 different ways that they are eaten. Here is a few to start with: boiled, baked, chips, pancakes, potato salad, JoJo's, potato skins, German Potato Salad, fries, tater tots, wedges, curly fries, sweet potatoes...

Have them learn about how food gets to our table by watching a quick video and then writing about it!

Interested in your own Potato Pack? Follow the link HERE: Science Stations: Potato Pack


Connecting Cultural Awareness: 
Another great way to add a bit of social studies to your lesson is to discuss where potatoes originated and what cultures eat potatoes at home as a staple food. Europeans typically brought their love of potatoes over and continued to eat them which is why some families eat more than others. We have a great discussion about what everyone's staple food is from rice to tortillas we learn a little bit about our heritage.

Kids that finish my stations get to go and play Mr. Potato Head where I have one of my own children's favorite toy. If you don't have that, have kids make their own by looking at a Mr. Potato Head picture.

Plant some potatoes in a bucket and let them sit until Fall! This is a great way to continue a project that another class started. You can have the planters write letters to give clues as to what is in the bucket or better yet they can go gold mining!

Gold Mining and STEM Connections: 
The best part about planting potatoes is that we get to pick them in the fall! I not only get to see each of my students year after year, I then can continue a lesson! However, not everyone can do this, so a great way to tie STEM activities to a social studies connection is to learn about the gold rush! I help them learn about this in science and then they get to dig for gold...Yukon Gold that is! Tie in measuring and writing and this is a perfect well rounded mini-unit~

Want to give a simulation a try and then connect engineering a wagon and prospector's tool...this pack is for you! Grab the STEM Gold Rush Science and Social Studies Connections HERE!

One potato...two potato...three potato...four, learning about potatoes can be fun and so much more!

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Let's Get Growing...Five Ways To Grow With Your Students

It is that time of year at our school...garden time! We were the proud recipients of a Farm to School Grant five years ago and we are still growing strong!

This week we started planting seeds in two grade levels. So I thought I would give you some tips on how to plant seeds with your students...

 1. Have a planting station ready with soil, seeds, water, trays, and towels
2. Preteach how to plant seeds and practice this mantra:
-scoop
-pat
-poke
-drop
-cover
-water

3. While some students are planting have an activity for the others to do...I usually have them do an activity such as how to read a seed packet, how to plant a seed, or what do seeds need.

4. What they will be planted in? We do peet pots now, we have tried cups with holes in the bottom (too expensive), milk cartons (need lots of water and hard to cover with plastic to keep the water cycle doing the job), we have tried egg cartons, too (too little for my taste)

5. Where will you put the containers or we like to call them seed babies? We have grow lights...I mean huge ones, but if you don't...use the window sill or you can rig up a light source using pvc pipes and florescent grow lights found at hardware stores.

The big think is not over water, under water, have them get too leggy...okay gardening isn't an easy task, but when I see that a seed is magic and they can put their plants in the ground when it is warm enough it is worth the work to keep the babies alive!


Need some help with your plant unit? Check out this plant pack that I just finished up on!

FIND THE PLANT PACK HERE!

Let's get growing together! Plant a seed...plant ideas for your students...learning to garden is a life long skill that they can take with them. Whether it be in a small cup, a container, or a garden...growing seeds can really be a great way to bring the outdoors in!

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Dandy...Lions and Fun in the Sun!

It is hot here in Wisconsin...our students have shut down....what do we do? We find a great way to take them outside and use the environment around them to get them excited to learn! The dandelions are out and the kids are checked out...until we found the dandelions that weren't cut in the field!  Here is a simple science lesson for you...

Plan:
1. What can dandelions have? What are dandelions? What do dandelions have?
2. I share my dandelion poster showing them along with a picked dandelion (root and all) the stem, root, leaves, bud, flower, clock, and seeds.
3. We then read our dandelion story

4. Go outside with your station cards and sheets (found in my Dandelion Stations Pack at TPT)
5. Let them work on the activities...I do Adaptations, How Tall, Can, Have, Are...and Tap Roots.
6. I give them a set time to explore and do one sheet...then we meet up and share.

7. I send them back out with rulers...partners...sheets, clipboard...and a tray for a chair. They come back with the joy of learning! From one seed they grow!

Check out this fun end of the year...summer fun pack!

Dandelion Fun TPT link

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What's Up Doc? Carrots!!!!

Our kindergartners are finishing up their senses activities. Why not use our school garden to teach all five senses! We used our five senses by picking carrots! We looked at the tops...then the bottoms! We felt them before and after we pulled them out of the ground. We smelled the fresh carrots and tried to describe the smell carrots have. They smell "carroty". We crunched them and they tasted sweet and yummy! I love the discoveries that were made!

1. Plant's leaves help us figure out what each plant is!
2. Even when the leaves are the same size, the carrots can be very different sizes.
3. Carrots are a root.
4. We eat the orange part and it grew under the ground.
5. We love pulling carrots out of the ground...it makes us laugh...smile...and squeal!

I love the smiles on their faces when they pull the carrots out of the ground! It's a big one!

And the winner of the biggest carrot of the day goes to these two gardeners!

We taught leaf structure...take a look at those leaves...it is a ground cherry plant. He pulled it out and looked for orange by the roots...weren't there. What a great teachable moment!

We went inside to write down our five senses reflections. How do carrots feel...smell...look...sound...taste?

Here are the carrots that they picked. After each kindergarten class is done...they will be shared in our lunchroom!

Our school garden helps each and every student grow! Here is the sheet we used to reflect on our activity! I thought I would help you plant a seed!

Carrots and Our Five Senses Freebie

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Digging For Gold In Science

Funny thing is...I was a social studies minor. I never really had a great science teacher to get me excited about science. So...when I can take a social studies topic and combine it with a science I am golden! Here is an idea for your school garden...

Last year, my second graders planted potatoes. Little did they know they would be digging for gold...Yukon Gold to be exact. This little lesson is a great way to teach the gold rush, measurement,  and Earth Materials. Here is the Freebie Link For You!!

First...I had the kiddos come in and get them excited about digging for gold. I put the book Gold Rush on Epic books up on the Smartboard. I shared the book and compared what they would be doing outside. When the story was done I had each student pick a card: either I will get to California by boat or I will get to California by boat. They found a partner with the same card. (Just a fun way to find a new partner....) The boaters got to pick a tool at the mercantile...then they were off to stake their claim (using spoons with their names on them as their stakes.) Each spot was in a grid pattern.

Marking a grid in the potato patch...staking a claim...and digging for gold!

The students had a set time to dig for gold. The boaters got three extra minutes in the garden...finally the covered wagon crew. When they found gold...it was magic!

Look at that gold! This is a great way to start our FOSS Earth Materials unit! Digging in the Earth to find rocks and minerals!

Next, we needed to see who had the "mother lode"! We spend two weeks learning how to use a scale and measure in grams. Once again using a garden helps tie in social studies, science, and math!

Using a scale to measure how much each prospector was able to find was a great connection to math! 

Next, it is time to record our weights on our graph. Keeping record allows us to see which group out of 4 classes doing this activity actually hauls in the "mother lode". You can see some kiddos in the background even weighing their potatoes again!

How exciting for the kids to reap the benefits of what they planted in second grade in a great lesson about history!

Prep: gridding a potato patch, getting spoons ready with markers, setting out a mercantile with tools, printing sheets and cards up, letting them dig, having them measure, then reflecting on learning. A highly productive lesson to teach science...social studies...and math! I love that we could use our school garden in such a successful way. These potatoes will be our September Harvest of The Month!

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Garden Time!

It is that time of year here at TJ Elementary! We are getting growing! Our kinder"gardeners" are busy learning about pumpkins and how to plant a seed. Remember these 6 easy words:
1. scoop
2. pat
3. poke
4. drop
5. cover
6. water

It works every time. How fun to have our kinders learning that it  takes time to grow. This video helps them visualize the process and what the pumpkin looks like from seed to pumpkin. Awesome song...time flies by and they can see the date change, see the plant grow and vine out...yellow flowers...then the pumpkin!

         Take a look at my little pumpkins!

 Here is a garden sheet that I use with them...Thanks to Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarden for such a great freebie...

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Planting a Seed...

Squash. Who would have thunk the kids would like squash soup? Well, we surveyed our kids and our littles voted half and half for liking and disliking the taste of butternut squash soup. I thought that was pretty good. We made the soup in the crock pot, shared the recipe and how to prepare it and yum, the majority of our bigs liked it. We even made homemade applesauce in the crock pot, too. We want to provide our after school classes the ability to try new things, be okay with not liking it, and learning ways to share these ideas with their families. We had a drawing for free butternut squash from our garden...they even loved that prize. It was so cute, I even got letters the next day from them thanking me for the food. Yesterday, we served squash in the lunch line. Can't wait to see the numbers of kiddos that tried it:)

 Our little survey with the littles. Tie isn't so bad!

 Thank you notes are sooo fun to get. I love that she said that the soup tasted like chicken noodle soup, we used chicken stock.

 What does butternut squash look like inside?

We finished up our Fall Harvest snacks by reading Fall Harvest. Just planting a seed, my garden friends.

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Plant A Seed...

This last week, we focused on my plate. We watched this fun video based on the song Born This Way explaining the new my plate food guide. We then played the optional activity Growing a Garden Game called My Plate Hoopla from Nutritious Delicious Wisconsin. We set out hula hoops that portrayed plates. We set out bean bags, you could use colored paper. Orange=grain,m green=veggies, purple= meats or beans, blue=dairy, and red= fruit. I made sure that there wasn't enough of some and I added yellow for sweets. You could steal from someone and add a sugar. I only gave so much time and then I called it. We went around to see if we had a well balanced meal. Then we went back to our room to make a my plate,  plate. They did a great job making their favorite meal, but making it even healthier. 

We worked on creating balanced meals that would be use in our lunchroom to encourage others to think about half of their plate being fruits and veggies. My plate does...does yours?

Here is a great video that we watched that helped the kids understand the new food guidelines. It is sung to Lady Gaga's song Born This Way! 

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