Plants Vocabulary Lesson 3 of 15 – Why do plants live where they do?
Learning Intention:
1. To activate prior knowledge about the forest and the plants that live there.
2. To process and analyze data and information on the plants and the forest.
3. To develop specialized vocabulary pertaining to plants and the forest.
4. To read a book and make connections to what we know about plants and the forest
5. To communicate learning through self, social and/or teacher assessment.
Learning Outcomes:
1. To brainstorm as many words that the students know about plants and the forest
2. To categorize the words and to understand the reasoning behind the categories.
Materials: The Cedar Club Forest Detectives by Diane Swanson, sentence strips, felt pens, BLM
Assessment:
Graffiti walls are free form spaces for brainstorming or communicating words, phrases, or ideas on a topic. These
are often used as evolving records. A teacher may use them to facilitate brainstorming on a particular theme at
the beginning of a unit, as well as encourage students to add new words or phrases relating to the theme as the
unit progresses. In addition to encouraging children to search for new and interesting words, the graffiti wall
serves as a class dictionary/thesaurus as students need novel words to enrich their writing.
Lesson:
1.) Before reading the book from page 3 to 13, ask the students to think about what they know about plants
and forests.
2.) Have students brainstorm as many words as they know about the forest and plants.
3.) Record as many words as the students know on sentence strips put them on graffiti wall.
4.) Ask the students to listen carefully and try to identify more words relating to the forest and plants.
5.) Read the book from page 3 to 13.
6.) Ask “What kinds of plants live in the forest?”
7.) Record the new vocabulary from the story, and ask students, “How do plants live and grow in the forest?”
8.) Record the new vocabulary into their journal.
9.) Ask students if they can organize the words into different categories, such as “parts of a tree” would be
the category and “branches” would be the word.
10.) Categorize all the words into different category.
11.) Have the students explain their reasoning behind their categorizing and why they would group the words
together.
12.) Assessment: completed word wall entries into journal.
13.) Prepare the students to think about what else they might know about the forest, and prepare them that
next time we will be talking what questions they might have about the forest.
Vocabulary List:
forest
soil
plants
roots
Trees
nutrients
ferns
seeds
berries
sprouts
seedlings
moss
leaves
ground
shading
needles
dirt
rocks
bushes
Wild flowers
branches
trunk
Forest floor
twigs
Suggested Vocabulary List:
Size
Colour
Shape
Texture
Soft
rough
small
Large
Thick
Thin
Shiny
Spiny
Dark green
Light green
Yellow-ish green
Reddish
Brown
Veins
Stem
Leaves
Oval
Long
Short
Round
Pointed
Berries
Hairy
Narrow
Egg-shaped
Heart-shaped
White
Flat
Edge
Wavy edge
Jagged edge
Thorny
Feathery
Waxy
Patterned
Hard
Black
Flexible
Stiff
Straight
Curved
Bowl-shaped
Smelly
Sweet
Grey
Bark
bumpy
My journal for: Plants
Copy words from word wall and use pictures or symbols to show
what you understand.
Word
Picture or symbol