STEM Lesson Plan & Activities - SPHERO Year PP/1

STEM Project- School Garden

End goal getting parents in to make a vegetable soup using vegetables grown in our garden following a tour and harvest of said garden. 8 Lessons to get vegetable garden established

 

Lesson 1

What is a vegetable garden?

·       Discuss prior knowledge of a vegetable garden, previously grown vegetables, tried vegetables

·        Digital tally or graph of vegetables that children like and dislike

·       Brainstorm ideas for our vegetable garden using mindmup.com (resources, vegetables to grow, design, space)

Lesson 2

Measuring up our vegetable garden

·       Decide on a site for the vegetable garden

·       Use sphero’s to measure out an appropriate site

·       Children then draw a bird’s eye view of the site (if you have access to a drone have a photo of the area from above)

·       Discuss resources available and decide which is the most appropriate

Lesson 3

What vegetables should we grow

·       Children research which would be the most appropriate vegetables to grow in the season

·       Discuss how seasons and weather play a role in how vegetable grow

·       Decide as a class 4 different vegetables/fruit to grow

Lesson 4

Build our vegetable garden

·       With parent volunteers or buddy classes construct the vegetable garden

·       Time lapse photography on building process

Lesson 5

Planting our garden

·       Using sphero measure out the distance for plant placement. One group of children then mark where plants are to be placed with a popstick. The second group to follow along behind and plant.

·       Set up a roster for watering and taking photos of plant growth over time

Lesson 6

Keeping our garden safe

·       Planning/designing a scarecrow to keep birds away from

·       Look at the different materials available to create their scarecrow

Lesson 7

Keeping our garden safe part 2

·       Making our scarecrow with a buddy class

·       Place scarecrows into our vegetable garden

Lesson 8

How does your garden grow?

·       Using photographs of the vegetables the children then sequence photos and scribe the difference in each photos.

The end result we would like to invite parents in to have a soup day with the children. They will be taken on a tour of the vegetable garden using programmed Sphero’s. They will also harvest vegetables from the garden then with their children they will make a vegetable soup. While eating the soup the students will present their journey to their parents using their time lapse footage and photographs taken.