Book choices for today:

Planting a Seed Inside Myself    Juliana Mendonca
About Mammals   Cathryn Sill
Mammals   Ann O. Squire
What is a Mammal?   Robert Snedden

Zoology: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Pictures of mammals and Parts of a Horse Booklet

Zoology 2
The first class of vertebrates we are going to learn about is mammals. Mammals look quite different from each other. You are a mammal, a rat is a mammal, a horse, and even dolphins and whales are mammals. None of these mammals look alike so what is it about them that makes them all belong to the mammal class of vertebrates? Of all the animals in whole world only mammals drink milk from heir mother’s body when they are born. Mammals are the only animals that have fur or hair! Mammal babies live inside their mother where they grow until they are ready to be born. Remember we learned about the umbilical cord where you were getting your food from when you were growing inside your mother? Animal mammals are also are fed through the umbilical cord when they are growing inside of their mothers.
The baby lives and grows and when its body is ready, it is born alive, not hatched from eggs. We call animals born alive, Viviparous. When a baby mammal is born it cannot take care of itself. A mammal baby needs it’s mother to take care of it and feed it milk from her body. The mothers protect their babies and teaches them how to do things as they grow up. Something else tells us if an animal is a mammal. It is that mammals are warm blooded. This means that the inside body temperature of their bodies stays the same even if the air outside is very cold.
(Show horse picture) Do all mammals look like this? No. It is just one kind of mammal. Notice these pictures of different kinds of mammals. Let’s look at the parts of a horse.

Additional Works:

Horse Puzzle – Montessori Material

Horse Matching – Buy 2 sets of horse stickers. Cut card stock pieces of paper to make a matching work. Older children will also like to play the game Concentration with the cards.

Practical Life:

Horse Clothespins – Make 4 horse body shapes out of craft foam, however do not make the legs. Paint 2 clothespins per horse body shape. Children can clothespin the legs on the horse bodies.

Art:

Horses – Make a horse body template. Children can sponge paint onto construction paper the inside of the template. Give a choice of paint colors and you can also have children glue on a wiggly eye.

Botany: (second circle)

Need for lesson – Seeds you started growing in the clear vase or jar, Parts of a Seed Chart and Booklet, and a variety of flower seeds, a planting pot, and some soil.

Botany 3
Let’s take a close look at our seeds we started and see what is happening. Wow, they started out dry and now they are larger, and it looks like they swelled up with water like a sponge. Has the seed coat come off yet? For today’s Botany lesson we are going to learn about all the different parts of a seed.
Demonstrate Parts of the Seed Booklet, and after naming each part, read what it is.
Do you remember when we talked about how special we all are. We all have the same kind of body but our eyes, skin color, hair, and even our sizes are different from each other. I have a tray of all different kinds of seeds. They are all flower seeds, but they are all different in some way. Maybe some will be purple or yellow. We are going to plant our seeds in his pot and call it our friendship pot. Each of you will come choose a seed and place it in the soil. Then we will wait and see the different flowers that grow. They will all be different, but they will all be flowers. Just like we are all different, but we all are people, and special friends.

This is another idea of seeds to plant that are successful for the children to observe.
Fava beans in a bowl layered with cotton in the bottom of the bowl.

Parts of a Seed Identification & Planting Exercise

Another book idea and see through container to plant seeds in. Book and container are from Scholastic Book Club.

Songs/Poems:

I’m a Little Seed

I’m a little seed,
Brown and fat,
I haven’t got a front,
And I haven’t got a back.
Plant me in the Earth,
Give me water each day,
I’ll grow to be a beautiful plant
While you play!