Using Celery to Talk About Plants

In this plant experiment I will be doing what teachers do best and pulling from a couple of different resources to put my lesson together.  All of the original links I used will be included below as well as a guide to my lesson.

The Objectives in this lesson:
1. Kids will identify simple parts of a plant
2. Kids will understand the function of the different parts of the plant
3. Kids will identify what a plant needs to survive


Literature Used:
The Carrot Seed by: Ruth Krauss
(Optional) Diary of a Worm
(Optional) Magic School Bus Video: Plants

**Teaching Tip: Whenever you are teaching the kids a new concept it is always best to reinforce the new idea in as many ways as possible.  Checking out books with your new topic in the library is a great way to reinforce a fun new idea and get them interested. Teachers in the classroom are always displaying books about the current units of study that the kids can get their hands on.
 I often back up new ideas with movies or You Tube clips that might show the kids a different visual of what they are learning.  When you do this, you will find that they can't help but get excited about your new learning topic!

Materials Needed:

• Celery Sticks 
• Food Coloring
• Parts of a Plant Diagram (link below)
• What Plants Need to Survive (link below)
• The Carrot Seed by: Ruth Krauss

We began this lesson by talking about Spring and all of the new plants that are going to begin to grow.  I showed my kids the picture of the plant diagram and asked each one to tell me what they saw.  We talked about how each part of the plant had a very important role in keeping the plant healthy and alive.  As we talked about the diagram they colored the different parts and I recorded their prior knowledge.

**Teaching Tip: Discovering their prior knowledge when conducting an experiment is very useful.  Once I know what they already know it helps me to tailor my discussion with them and to engage them with further with new information. I wrote down what they told me and then read it back to them before I taught them anything new.

Next, I told them we were going to read a story about a little boy who planted his very first seed. I asked them what they thought the little boy was going to have to do to make his seed grow. How much time would it take? Where should he plant his seed? We read The Carrot Seed.

After reading the story we talked about all that the boy had to do in order for the plant to grow.  I handed them the "What Plants Need to Survive" worksheet that I created and had them circle the things that plants need to survive.

I then showed them the celery stalks and told them that we were going to watch and see how a plant, like celery, takes in water from the ground in order to stay alive.  They each got to put food coloring into the glass cup and stir it around, then place the celery stalks inside.  We predicted what might happen to the celery when it was placed in the colored water and then set it aside to observe.  I let the celery stalks soak in the water overnight.

Adding the food coloring

Adding the stalks to the water. Using stalks with leaves will give you the best results.

Time to observe

The results were fun to watch and looked their best after sitting in the water overnight.  You will see the colored water travel up the celery stalks and into the leaves.  You can also cut into the celery stalk and will see the different colors following tracks all the way up to the top.  This will demonstrate to the kids how roots and plant stems suck up the water like a straw and deliver it to all the parts of a plant.

In this picture you can see the red dots that appear when you cut the top of the celery stalk off.  This was difficult to capture in a picture.

The blue cup displayed the most obvious results by turning the leaves a really vibrant blue!

In this picture you can see the colored tracks that appear up the stalk if you peel it apart.

This was a really fun experiment that has us anticipating Spring when we can begin to plant seeds in our own garden and watch it grow!

Needed Worksheets Below:
What Plants Need to Survive:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-4_yroOwt-aMk9EdUJrclJhZlE/edit

Parts of a Plant Diagram:
http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/media/images/free_resources/teachers_corner/lesson_plans/pre_k/partsPlantDiagram.pdf?ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395181113&bmUID=1392812505565

Parts of a Plant Original Lesson Plan: (I used this when creating my lesson )
http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/general_content/free_resources/teachers_corner/lesson_plans/partsPlant.jsp