Square Foot Garden

Students will review how plants grow and what plants need to grow through kinesthetic modeling. An optional experiment is included to view the effect of plant spacing. Finally, students create square foot gardens, reviewing math concepts of fractions and measuring length.

Concepts: Plant Needs, Fractions, Length

Essential Questions

  • What do plants needs to grow and thrive?
  • How can we plant our seeds with enough space for each to get what they need?

Standards Addressed

  • S1L1a. Students will identify the basic needs of a plant: air, water, light, nutrients.
  • MCC1G3. Students will partition circles and rectangles into two and four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, fourths, and quarters, and use the phrases half of, fourth of, quarter of. Describe the whole as two of, or four of the shares. Understand that decomposing into more equal shares creates smaller shares.
  • MCC1MD2. Students will express the length of an object as a whole number of length units, by laying multiple copies of a shorter object (the length unit) end to end; understand that the length measurement of an object is the number of same-size length units that span it with no gaps or overlaps.
Review
  • S1L1b. Students will ask questions to compare and contrast the basic needs of plants (air, water, light, and nutrients) and animals (air, water, food, and shelter).
  • S1L1c. Students will identify the parts of a plant: root, stem, leaf, and flower.