Lesson Plan #2

Jordan Hoffman

First Grade Lesson Plan- Growing Flowers

Project Description:

Students will explore what a flower needs to grow, specifically a dandelion. We will explore this process through literature, movement, and pictures. They will then create what they observed using basic parts of a flowers anatomy.

Materials Needed:

Pencils

Permanent Markers

Viewfinder

Watercolors

Water Cups

Paint Brushes

Flower hand-outs

Paper

The Dandelion Seed- Joseph Anthony

Pictures of the dandelion process

Jelly Beans

Fake Flowers 

Floor Mats

Objectives:

• Students, by themselves, will be able to identify stem, leaves, and the bulb of a flower. 
• Students will be able to identify what it takes to grow a flower. Through soil, water, and sunlight.
• Students will create a piece of art using the anatomy of a flower to create their very own flower.

Visual Arts Standards Addressed

·      Creating: Engage collaboratively in exploration and imaginative play with the book The Dandelion Seed and small movement activity introducing the three things a flower needs to grow.  

·      Creating: Use observation to determine the anatomy of a flower. Pointing out the different parts will help.

·      Creating: Explore uses of materials and tools to create works of art.

·      Responding: Classify artwork based on different reasons why you chose to draw that form of a dandelion.

Other Standards Addressed

·      Objective 3- Develop and use skills to communicate ideas, information, and feelings.

o   Recognize and express feelings in a variety of ways (e.g., draw, paint, tell stories, dance, sing).

Vocabulary

·      Flower- The blossom of a plant.

·      Stem- The ascending axis of a plant.

·      Bulb- A plant growing from such a bud.

·      Sunlight- The light of the sun

·      Soil- The portion of the earth’s surface consisting of disintegrated rock of humus.

·      Water- A transparent, odorless, tasteless liquid, a compound of hydrogen and oxygen.

·      Watercolors- Any paint that uses water as a solvent.  

·      Negative Space- Shapes or spaces that are or represent the area unoccupied by objects.

·      Viewfinder-  A small window cut in a piece of paper or card, that shows what will be in a picture’s composition

Pedagogy

Before class I will prepare papers and mixed media on the back table for students to sit in own space.

·      Have each student sit on a floor mat just for them keeping personal space.

·      I will read the book, The Dandelion Seed by Joseph Anthony.

·      I will then review the process of the dandelion through pictures I have prepared.

·      Once I feel confident the students understand I will then do a simple movement activity using a jelly bean as our seeds, a fake flower, and our hands to do the rest.

·      We take our left hand and face it palm up in the air. We then take our right hand with a shovel (pretend) and dig a hole in our soil (our left hand). Once we have our hole in the soil we can place our seed (jellybean) into it. Then we cover our hole up with our shovel. (palm closes- symbolizing our seed is buried).  Once seed is in the hole the rain comes down on it (with right hand sprinkling fake water) then the sun comes out (right  hand spread apart looking like a sun) once all three things have been in place we will then quickly and sneakily eat the jelly bean and put a fake flower in our left hand being able to go through the process of a seed to a flower.

·      Once that activity is over we will go over what the different flowers we are holding have in common. (a stem, leaves, and a bulb.)

·      I will then go over what a viewfinder is and demonstrate its use by using objects in the classroom for students to understand.

·      I will then describe that everything inside your viewfinder is what I want you to draw. Notice that it’s a really small square, describe negative space and that you want them to draw what’s inside their viewfinder really big so we can see all the details of their flower.   

·      Now instructions: Each student will have a paper of different flowers and their own viewfinder. They will then take their viewfinder and go over the flowers and decided what they would like to draw.  

·      They draw what they see with pencil. Once they have done that, they can now go over their pencil with a permanent marker. They are now ready to paint.

·      Give each student his or her own watercolor kit. Let them know you want them to create their own colors and not to use the original ones. You can do this by adding water and by adding different colors together to create new colors.

·      Now that everyone is working I will walk around and talk to the children individually and ask them to point out the parts of their flower or ask why they chose to do those colors.

·      Once students are done painting we will then meet on the matts where we will go over what we learned while our pictures dry.

Assessment

After everyone is done, have the students walk around and observe their classmates work.

·        After observing their classmates artwork, as a class talk about the things they see.

o   How are they different?

o   How are they similar?

o   What do you like?

o   What did you learn about a flower?

·        How does your work portray what we learned about flowers today?