When selecting appropriate materials and items for a first grade plant life cycle experiment, safety should be key. Although young children of this age, typically six to seven years, are usually past the putting things in their mouths stage of preschool and kindergarten, toxic or potentially harmful items should never be used. Do not assume that simply because the child is six years old that he will not get curious and misuse, or ingest, a science material. Before beginning this, or any other, science experiment, teachers should always give safety instructions to the children . For example, if you are growing marigolds as part of your plant life cycle activity, discuss the proper use of gardening tools and soil handling safety before starting the hands-on part of the lesson.
Depending on your specific plant life cycle experiment, you will need a variety of materials for the first graders to use. Most schools have particular ordering and procurement procedures to follow. Create your lesson plan early and ask the school for plant items that you may need such as soil, child sized gardening gloves, child safe (plastic) gardening tools, seeds, seedlings and watering cans. If your school does not provide these, or similar items, try sending a letter home to parents asking for donations. Other materials that you may need include magnifying glasses to examine seeds and parts of a plant, paper and pencils for writing and making observations, a science notebook or journal, plastic cups to start the seeds in, visual aids such as posters and construction paper and markers or crayons for creating visual or pictorial documentation of the project.
There are several different ways to conduct plant life cycle experiments with first graders. Although these activities should be simple enough for a six or seven year old to understand, do not hesitate to use appropriate scientific terms. Discuss the parts of a plant (i.e., roots, flowers, leaves, stem), different parts of the life cycle starting with the seed and what a plant needs to grow such as water and sunlight. Following a life cycle discussion, start the actual hands-on part of the experiment. Extended growing activities will allow the children to observe how a seed grows into a plant over time, making observations along the way. Another option is a compare and contrast life cycle experiment that allows the students to see how factors such as sunlight affect growing. Create two small containers with seeds or seedlings. Put one in the sunlight and the other in the dark to explore the differences.
No matter what type of experiment you choose, having the children document their discoveries is a vital part of the lesson. Documentation allows the young student to reflect on what he has seen and done. Additionally, documentation serves as a visual reminder to continue the learning over time. Documentation ideas for a plant life cycle experiment include a plant journal in which the students write a few words and/or draw pictures of the plant's progress over time, a circle shaped drawing of the life cycle including the major steps or even photographs (that the children take) of the experiment from start to finish.