Garden Lessons

The Christmas cactus has been a favorite houseplant for a very long time. Single plants are pass down from generation to generation because they're long-lived and easy plants to grow. The plants are tropical cacti called epiphytes found in the same environments as orchids. The plant will flower best if kept in a container where it's pot-bound. Schlumbergera is a genus of cactus from the coastal mountains of south-eastern Brazil. Plants grow on trees or rocks in habitats which are generally shady with high humidity. . It likes free-draining humus-rich, somewhat acid growing media such as a mixture of peat or leafmould.

The key to getting Christmas cactus to flower during the holiday season is the proper light exposure, correct temperatures and limited watering. So during the fall months, the Christmas cactus should be placed in a spot where it receives indoor indirect bright light during the daylight hours but total darkness at night. The Christmas cactus needs a spot where the temperatures are cool during the fall months. Water the plants thoroughly and then allow the top inch of soil to dry before watering again. During the fall and winter months, the plants should be watered less frequently in order to get them to bloom. Christmas cactus need about 50 to 60 percent humidity. Keep it away from drafty areas. The fertilizer you use should have a nitrogen ratio of no higher than 10 percent. Of the three numbers on a fertilizer container, the first number is nitrogen. Professionals get Christmas cactus into bloom by keeping them in cool greenhouses where the temperatures average approximately 50 degrees and where the plants receive between 12 and 14 hours of total darkness each day and watering is done sparingly. Bud drop is usually because of over-watering, lack of humidity or insufficient light. The best time to shape the plant is when the new growth begins in March or early April

1. Apples

2. Plant Summary

3. The Soil

4. An Introduction to Plants

5. Roots and Leaves

6. Food for Thought: Grains

7. Plants on Our Plate

Lesson plans have information and activities for a broad range of ages and appear in order listed. Choose what is appropriate for your age group. I love to use toys when I teach and there are some good ones out there! Inexpensive too.

APPLES     There are no apples native to America. Apples date back to the prehistoric times. The first apples were small walnut size crabapples growing in Asia and Europe. It is America’s oldest cultivated fruit. Julius Caesar liked plants and ordered his soldiers to plant many apple trees. They were the “Stamp of Rome” and a symbol of Roman occupation.

   Apples come from trees and are a fruit because it has seeds. Apple trees are hardy and without a lot of care, they grow. France grows the most apples and America is second. Apple trees grow in almost every state but Florida. They don’t grow in tropical climates or the Arctic. They like cool climates with plenty of sunshine and abundant rainfall. They can grow to be 25 feet tall and there are lots of them today that are over 100 years old. Apple trees require cross-pollination. They are the hardiest of all fruits. If flower buds are open, a frost will kill the flowers and you will have no fruit. The apple tree will drop the apples that it cannot support.

   William Blackstone arrived in Boston in 1623 with bibles and a bag of apple seeds. Apples fed horses and cows too. As America grew, so did apple trees! Pioneers drank a lot of cider, liquid pressed from apples because water was often contaminated from washing.

   John Chapman better know as Johnny Appleseed was a peaceful man born in Massachusetts in 1774, 150 years after William Blakestone arrived in Boston and he was responsible for planting many apple trees. He planted the apple seeds he collected from cider milk and hiked the Ohio River Valley and sold trees to settlers for 6 ½ cents each.

   One of my favorite apples is the granny smith. There really was a Granny Smith. About 100 years ago Margaret Smith from New South Whales, Australia brought home some apples from Tasmania. She threw the rotten one out in her garden and seedlings grew and people starting calling the apples Granny Smiths apples!

   Apples can be grown in the home garden with little care. There are many varieties and sizes and colors. The trees are host to a variety of songbirds. Apples have a good storing power and were often the only fruit in winter. Apples were dried in the summer sun and stored in cotton bags. There are many uses for apples in pies, cakes, bread, applesauce, and for juice or cider (which is fermented apple juice.) Apples contain vitamin C, A, and potassium. The old saying is “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Apples orchards are sprayed with pesticides heavily 7 or 8 times a season. It is best to eat apples that are organically grown. Our bodies store pesticides. They are not eliminated from our body and are a health risk.

   A long time ago if a fellow tossed an apple to a girl, he was asking her to marry him. If she caught it she accepted. If you peeled an apple without breaking the peeling, twirled it around your head 3 times and threw it over your shoulder onto the floor it would form the initial of your future spouse. If you break the peal it was bad luck. Sometimes children would play “snap apple” by tying an apple in the doorway by its stem and someone would try to bite the swinging apple. Sometimes they would put an apple in a bucket of water and have you bob for the apple. People even dried apples and made apple dolls!
Apple activities: A teacher might give each student an apple to eat and have them count the seeds in each after they finish. Do they have the same number of seeds? They could graft the results. They might compare different types of apples. Draw an apple tree. Make a felt board apple tree and turn it into a math lessons. If I pick 3 off the tree and you pick the other 7 then how many apples were there in all? If you gave me 4 how many would I have. Slice a couple of apples across, notice the star in the center that is made by the ovary and contains the seeds. Make apple prints on cards or wrapping paper for Christmas time. Tell stories and eat them! Talk about nutrition and about what happens to the apple when you eat it! Introduce the digestive system. Plant an apple tree! Sort laminated apples of different sizes/colors. Have students place different size apples in different baskets, make apple patterns or make sets of apples with matching numbers or letters for your students to match. Cut an apple in halves and fourths and use to teach fractions. Use the letters in the word apple to make other words such as, pal, lap, sap, ape, pea, sea, spa, slap, pals, apes, peas, apple, apples. Johnny Appleseed is remembered for his generosity to people and his respect for nature. Ask students to share ways they have shown generosity to others or respect to nature. Let students trace their hand on a sheet of paper and color it brown (the trunk of the tree and the fingers are branches.) Let them use green tempera paint and sponges to paint the leaves on the tree and use a Q-tip and red tempera paint to put the apples on the tree. Use apples and compare it to the layers of the earth. The core of the apple is the core of the earth. The core is the mantle, which is the part we eat. The peel is like the outer layer or crust.

Plants Summary

   There are thousands of kinds of plants. Plants are producers and provide food and shelter for many animals. The basic structures of a plant are the roots, stem or trunk, and crown which usually includes the leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds

   Though some plants are parasites and live off of other plants, most plants make their own food. The leaves are the food factories. Chlorophyll is the magical substance that gives them their green color and allows them to make their food from sunlight. Using sunlight for energy and H2O and CO2 they make the sugar glucose. 6 CO2 + 6 H2O + light energy = C6 H12 O6(sugar) + 6O2. The long chains of sugar molecules form the cellulose of plants. Another interesting thing is that if you are in the hospital and in need of nutritional strength they give you glucose.

   Plants must have sunlight, water, CO2 from the air and nutrition to survive. They transpire through the little stoma located on the underside of leaves. These look like two little lips that open and close by shrinking or swelling. A plant will wilt or die if it doesn’t get enough water. Some will rot if they get too much water. They are as picky and individual as people!

   Some plants like hot, some like cold. Some like it dry, some like it wet.

   Some like shade, some like it sunny. Some are soft, some are hard.

   Some are furry, some are thorny. Some are tiny, and some are huge.

   Plants move! They may climb, crawl, float, or stand. Tropisms are the movement of plants in response to an external directional stimuli. Geotropism is a response to the force of gravity. Phototropism is when a plant moves towards light. Hydrotropism is when the roots of a plant move towards water. Roots are generally positively geotropic and grow downward. The roots are the sponges that soak up water and anchor the plant. Tropisms are controlled by differences in concentrations of growth hormones.

   Some plants have leaves or flowers that open and close. In the mountains when the weather gets very cold rhododendron leaves will curl up. The sensitive plant closes it’s leaves if touched. Some flowers open and close at specific times like the morning glory, four o’clock, dandelion, or daylily. You might have students make a flower clock. Some flowers only bloom at night like the moonflower.

   Plants cells have a cell wall that is lacking in animal cells. The wall gives the plant strength and support.

   Plants come in a variety of sizes and colors. They may be white, orange, purple or many other colors. They grow from the soil, on bread, cheese, rocks, on other plants, in the ocean, lakes, deserts, and swamps. There are plants that look like animals and plants that look like stones. There are plants that live in trees like mistletoe, orchids, and Spanish moss. There are plants that climb like ivy, honeysuckle, grapevines, pumpkins, cucumbers, and morning glories.

   Algae include some of the simplest plants know to man. They are mostly aquatic and range in size from one single cell living on trees, in snow, ponds and the surface waters of the ocean to strands of cells several meters long that make up seaweeds in the deep ocean. Algae in marine and freshwater plankton are important as the basis of food chains.

   There are plants that act like animals. From spores slime mold crawls like a worm then becomes fixed like a stem. Some plants eat insects like the sundew, Venus flytrap, and pitcher plant. There is a fungus that catches worms with a lasso. My favorite is the microscopic euglena that has chlorophyll and can make it’s own food but moves and eats like an animal as well. Lichens are two plants that are partners. One makes food and the other finds water. They may grow on bare rock and break rock down to soil.

   The leaves of deciduous plants change colors in the fall because cork forms in the stem of the leaf and cuts off the water supply. When there is no water the chlorophyll green fades. Carotenes and anthocyanins in the leaves give other colors. If sugar is trapped then the color turns red or purple. Leaves turn brown when dry and are dead. Galls in the leaves or stems of plants are bumps where insects have laid eggs. When a leaf falls from a plant it leaves a scar. Many of these scars look like cute little faces. The scar left by a leaf from the Tree of Heaven is the shape of a heart!

   Some plants are poisonous or have poisonous parts such as poison oak and ivy, mistletoe, castor bean, yew, oleander, poinsettia, mountain laurel, wild cherry, and rhubarb

   Plants may be evergreen or deciduous. Evergreens don’t freeze in winter and their leaves are tough and they remain on the plant through the winter. Deciduous plants lose their leaves in the fall.

   Plant Biomes:

Pond – cattails, lilies, lotus, duckweed, algae, bulrush, calamus

Ocean – seaweed, kelp, diatoms, eelgrass, sea lettuce, sargassum

Desert – cactus, yucca, stone plant

Rainforests are tropical and plants are green all the time.

Mountains have many biomes

Plants give us food, medicine, spices, drinks, clothing, jewelry, dyes and many more things than I can mention. I love plants!

The SOIL I don't know of a single kid that isn't crazy over digging in the dirt! Just put a shovel in hand and you will be surprised. Ask kids questions to see what they know about soil. The two groups of living things are plants and animals. The oldest living thing on Earth is a tree. The largest living thing on earth is a tree. A lot of our food comes from trees. Organic means coming from living things. Organic chemistry is the chemistry of living things. Organic gardening is gardening naturally without poisons. The chemistry of living things is based on the element carbon. Carbon under great pressure produces the diamond. I like this element!
Everything in the universe is made of elements. Over 100 different elements have been identified. Elements are made in stars. “You are just a little bit of stardust!” Name some elements: iron, tin, copper, gold, silver, calcium, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorous, mercury, carbon. Your body needs nutrition that has certain elements to grow healthy. Plants get these elements from good rich soil. We get most of these elements from plants, our food. There are many different kinds of soil: Clay, sand, silt, loam. What makes soil? Discussion. The richest soil is made from things that were once alive: leaves, fruits, fallen trees and limbs, dead animals, bone, eggshells. There are many colors of soil. Sand may be shades of orange, white, gray, black or pink. Clay may be red, orange, gray, or white, but the best soil for growing plants is rich dark black loam, which comes mostly from living things. People call it “Black Gold”. It stays soft enough for young roots to grow, holds water, and is rich with nutrients that plants need to grow healthy. Let kids examine and feel soil samples. Pour water through 3 bottles of different kinds of soil that have holes in the bottom and measure the uptake of water from each. Discuss composting and feeding the soil with raw food scraps and eggshells from kitchen. Examine worms. Worms are important to composting soil. Worms have 5 hearts, a brain with two tiny lobes and a long spinal chord. It is divided into segments, has no bones but moves using muscles and very tiny hairs that are on each segment. They breath through their skin and it needs to stay moist for them stay alive.

Materials: Chart of the elements, samples of different colors and types of soil, bowls of different soil types, water bottles for making sedimentators, container of worms, 3 plastic bottles with holes punched in the bottom for drainage.
Activities: Examine and feel soil samples. Observe worms. Make sedimentators. Go for a walk and collect different types of soil in a bottle about 1/2 full( you may want to have some soil with you in case there is no sand or clay) Have kids fill bottle the rest of the way with water, shake up, and then set aside to see how it settles out. Fill a plastic bottle with sand, one with clay and one loam. Bottles should have a few holes in bottom close together. Pour 1 cup of water in each bottle; collect from the bottom and measure to see which one absorbs the most water. Children love the song "Dirt Made My Lunch"! Soil mixed with straw and water will, with the sun's help, harden into bricks. You can also mix mud with spanish moss. Try turning mudpies into houses! Besides the fun of mud play, children learn about evaporation, building construction and the creative use of natural resources!

An Introduction to Plants Plants are the oldest and largest form of life on Earth(trees). Ask kids if they eat leaves, roots, stem, or seeds. You will be surprised at their answers. Yes, we eat all plants parts. There are six basic parts to a plant: root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit, and seed. Teach the song about plant parts. Seeds feed the world. Do you eat grass? Grains such as corn, rice, cereals, breads, and pasta are made from the seeds of grasses. Seeds travel on the wind, through a stomach, on animals or across the ocean and each kind of plant seed looks differently. Flowers make the seeds. Use the felt board to show the parts of a flower: sepals, petals, Stamen, pistil, sticky stigma, pollen, ovules. When a seed gets the right amount of water and sunshine and if it is in the right place, the seed will germinate and sprout and a new plant begins to grow. Plants need water, soil, and sunshine to grow. Ask them if they see plants going to the grocery for food. Leaves are the food factories of plants and through a process called photosynthesis they turn sunlight into the sugar glucose. Plants make their own food! On the bottom side of leaves their are the stoma that look like little lips. These open and close allowing the plant to breathe.

Materials: hand drum for music, paper and pencils for drawing the parts of a flower. Samples of many different kinds of seeds for them to examine. lima beans, paper towels, baggies, Felt board of parts of a flower. Pots of soil and seeds.

Activities: Learn song about the parts of a plant and “I am a Sprout”. Examine different kinds of seeds. Make a felt board flower showing the parts or a felt board plant showing the parts of a plant. You can also draw it on a wipe off board. Dissect flowers. Wrap 3 lima beans in a wet paper towel and seal in a plastic snack bag to germinate. Plant some seeds in seed pots.

ROOTS AND LEAVES Roots and leaves are the parts of the plant that are most important to feeding the plant. Review the song about the 6 plant parts. Where do plants get food to grow? You don’t see them in the grocery store! The leaves are like little food factories that synthesize the light of the sun into the sugar glucose. It is a process called photosynthesis. The leaf also transpires water through its leaves and breathes air through little structures on the underside of the leaf called stoma. They look like 2 lips and they open and close. Show pictures of stoma. Plants take in the carbon dioxide and put oxygen back in the air through their leaves.

The roots of a plant are important to anchor the plant and drink in water and nutrients from the soil. There are 4 basic root types: branching, tap roots, bulbs and tuber. Show kids samples of each type root and see if they can name which one it is when you hold it up.Pass out different kinds of leaves to each table for kids to examine and have them do some leaf rubbings. Point out the veins that run through the leaves that carry water and nutrients from the soil.

MATERIALS: Hand drum, chart of photosynthesis, samples of leaves, samples of root systems, picture of stoma in leaves, rice paper and crayons for rubbings

Activities: Sing plant songs and add " My Roots Go Down", leaf rubbings, grow sweet potatoe from a tuber.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: GRAINS Show children the chart of the food pyramid and ask them the shape of it. Ask them to see the largest part of the pyramid at the bottom. Ask children if they eat grass. Do they eat seeds? (Children usually respond no!) Do they eat corn? Corn is a grain from grass along with wheat, rye, rice, oats, and barley. Grains are seeds from grasses used to make breads, cereals and pasta. SEEDS FEED THE WORLD. Hold the ear of corn up and ask them what part of the plant it is; root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit, or seed? Teach them the song (with rhythm and movements) about the six parts of a plant.Tell a story about corn. When we pick corn fresh from the plant it is young and tender and delicious, but if we let it stay on the plant it becomes hard and matures into seeds. We can take a seed that looks very dead and plant it in the ground and if the seeds needs are met, it will grow a new corn plant! We can pop the seeds into popcorn, grind them up into grits, or cornmeal to make hushpuppies, muffins or cornbread or grind them fine to make cornflower for tortillas. Let children see a sample of bread and notice that it has holes in it from a gas that forms and makes the bread rise when it is baked They can eat it too!). All kids love bread. You know they say bread is the staff of life.

Pretend to make cornbread and put some cornflower in a bowl, add egg, some milk and a secret ingredient that makes air and the batter rises when it is baked. Show them what happens by doing the experiment creating a gas (Co2) from a solid (baking soda) and a liquid (vinegar). Pour some vinegar in a clear soda bottle. Fill the balloon with some baking soda using a funnel. Show children the funnel and tell them it is used to make a little mouth into a big mouth. Attach the rim of a balloon to the bottle and lift it to let the soda fall making a gas that blows up the balloon.

Materials: Chart of the Food Pyramid, ear of corn, samples of grains (from feed store wheat, barley, oats, rye, rice, corn) Samples of things we make from grains (cereal, popcorn, grits, cornmeal, cornflower, bread, and cookies.) 1 soda bottle, baking powder, funnel, vinegar, and balloon.

Activities: Examine grains from grasses. We make flour, bread, pasta, and cereals from them. Do rhythm exercise and teach the song about plant parts. Give each child a slice of bread to examine the holes in it. Then do the experiment making the reaction of vinegar and soda blow up the balloon. This is what happens when we bake bread, filling it with holes from the air created. Children can plant seeds of grains and with care, see them grow!

Content: Plants on Our Plate: Fruits and Vegetbles

Energy is required to do work. Have you ever been tired and felt like you didn’t have any energy? How do we get energy?

1. OXYGEN from the air we breathe.

2. FOOD we eat gives us energy and nutrients to grow and build a healthy body.

3. EXERCISE to keep systems flowing and strengthen them.

4. REST for the brain to gather chemicals needed for the next day.

Do you eat plants; roots, stems, leaves, seeds? (Many young children will respond no!) We eat all the parts of plants. Remind them about the energizing grains, the group of foods like rice, corn, pasta, bread. Two other food groups good for you to eat are vegetables and fruits. Are plants alive? Yes plants are alive and go from seed to seed growing and multiplying. They breathe; need sun to live, water to drink, and vitamins and minerals from the soil to grow strong. Plants turn the light of the sun to energy! You don’t see plants going to the grocery store for food. Their leaves make their food from sunlight through a process we call photosynthesis. Plants are producers and they feed the planet!

What are the parts of a plant? Say after me; roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. Teach children the song about the 6 plant parts. Hold up a vegetable or fruit and let the children tell if it is a fruit or vegetable. Ask what part of the plant is it and let them say if it grows on a tree, vine, or bush. Make up puzzles for the children such as: What is white inside, grows on a tree and can be red, yellow, or green? (apples) What is the difference in processed and unprocessed food? Which is better for you? Fresh raw or steamed vegetables and fruits are best to eat. Ask children to name some of the fruits and vegetables grown in S.C. We get many vitamins and minerals from fruits and vegetables that help our whole body grow strong and healthy.

Activities Show some energy by doing some stretching and energizing exercises. Hand out samples of fruits and vegetables(artificial samples) and let them tell what part of the plant it is and what kind of plant it grows on (vine, bush, or tree) Solve food puzzles. Ex. It is a root and is the color orange. What is it? Children learn the songs “I am a Sprout” and “Six Plant Parts”

Materials: Food Pyramid chart, samples of fruits and vegetables; coconut, broccoli, carrot, potato, celery, apple, leaves. These represent the different parts of a plant.

Books to read: Where Food Comes From by David Suzuki and Barbara Hehner, Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Elhert