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3rd Grade Lessons

Third Grade Lessons

THIRD GRADE GARDENING

3rd grade Curriculum: Students study cycles and seasonal food in the garden, and build a harvest and planting calendar from their own observations. They do more advanced garden work and increase their cooking skills, learn about the sources of their favorite foods, and practice using their senses to become better aware of what the garden needs to stay healthy. 

Third Grade is the first year that the students have an Outdoor Learning Center class every week.  We try to cook and eat as often as possible.  Students learn to identify seeds, leaves and flowers.  They start experimenting with soils, and get more involved in the onsite composting program. Each student will make a garden journal which houses their art, recipes, experiment notes and any rainy day lessons. It is nice way to keep the memories of their time in the Outdoor Learning Center.

This is also the year that students help out other gardens that need some TLC.  We just recently sheet mulched the K-1 garden area with burlap bags. The students realize they are helping the younger students because they are not in the garden as much. It takes a village to keep the gardens thriving.

COMPOST STERILIZATION EXPERIMENT - 3RD GRADE

Every time we used our Bay Farm Compost for starting seeds we would grow more weeds than we could handle, so we decided to do an experiment.  We discussed why the compost from The Davis Street Transfer Station did not have weed seeds in it, but our compost did. It is all about the temperature of the soil.  I asked the third graders how we could change the temperature of the soil enough to kill the seeds, but not enough to hurt it.  Their answers were fairly disturbing (set it on fire, get a dragon to breathe on it, lazer beams, etc.)  However, we eventually decided to microwave and freeze our soil to see if it would kill the weed seeds. In the end, all of our methods did better than the control group.  It was a very successful experiment!

Soil Sterilization Lesson Plan

POPPIES IN THE GARDEN

Springtime brings both California and Oriental Poppies. I like to teach the 3rd graders the difference between the two and how to identify the bud, bloom and seedpods of each one. 

EDIBLE SEEDS - WHO'S YOUR MOMMA?

The students have to guess what plant or fruit the seeds come from.  It is a fun guessing game that comes with edible seed snacks like sunflower and pumpkin at the end.

Edible Seed Lesson

ROSEMARY POTATOES

Rosemary & Garlic Potatoes

RELEASING BUTTERFLIES

THERE IS NEW COOK IN THE KITCHEN.

A VISITING ORB SPIDER

LESSON PLANS LOCKER