Outdoor Classroom

Fresh air is a necessity, and especially because we spend most of our days indoors, it’s so important to extend the classroom beyond 4 walls. Back in March, in preparation for lockdown, we went to the Dollar Tree and picked up some seed packets. We had never grown sunflowers, but planting them, watering them, and tracking their progress was one of the highlights of our day, every day. They grow SO fast and can easily be turned into a math and science activity for any age. Read below for some ideas, and feel free to chime in with ideas of your own.

MATH IDEAS:
• How many Legos (or inches) tall is my sunflower? 
• Graphing height of sunflowers using M&Ms as manipulatives to give them a tangible visual or just coloring in the boxes of the graph.
• Measuring how much water my sunflower needs each day (this activity can also be graphed), and different size containers can be used to measure (tbsp, cup, pint, quart, etc).
• Does every seed packet have the same number of seeds?
• Addition and subtraction with sunflower seeds.

SCIENCE IDEAS:
• Do sunflowers grow better in the shade or in direct sunlight?
• Will 2 sunflowers planted in the same pot grow as tall as a single sunflower in one pot?
• Will soil type affect sunflower growth?

LITERACY ACTIVITIES:
• Sunflower journals to track progress.
• Place the seed packets in alphabetical order.
• Write the word “sunflower” and illustrate it for our word wall.
• Write about a day in the life of a sunflower from the sunflowers’ perspective.