Friday, May 22, 2009

Plant Plumbing (A book About Roots and Stems) By: Susan Blackaby

Book Genre: Non-fiction

Publishing Info: Picture Window Books (24 pages)

Awards or honors received: None

Summary: This book is about all aspects of a plant. It starts out teaching the children about roots and stems and why they are important to the health of the plant itself. It teaches the children that some vegetables grow above ground and some vegetables grow below ground. It illustrates this through pictures. For example: Vegetables you dig to eat are... carrots, radishes, turnips and beets. Fruits that grow above the ground are... blueberries, strawberries and watermelon. It proceeds to talk about how a stem is like a bundle of straws that suck up water to feed the plant. Some stems are soft and green like flower stems or vegetable stems but some are hard and woody like a tree trunk. The books wraps up by taking about how some plants stop making food in the winter and lose their leaves. In the spring, plants use food stored in the roots to start growing again.

Personal rating and reason for rating: ***Good. This book had many positives but one negative in my opinion. The book was beautifully illustrated using brilliant water colors. The pictures were large and illustrated the words to where the children could understand by looking at the pictures. The book was sectioned off into parts which I really liked. It started off talking about plant parts and then went to the different kinds of stems and so forth. The negative that I found when reading this book is that for kindergarten we take one aspect of a plant at a time. I feel that this book has way too much content to read all in one sitting. It jumps from one topic to another and I would be afraid the students would not retain what I was trying to teach. For example, I would break this book up so when I taught about stems I would only read the stem section and then complete an activity about stems. Break it down for my students. Overall though a wonderful book!

Reading level: 3.0 (Accelerated Reader)

Interest level: k-5

Possible uses of the text in integrated units of study:

Reading: Ask HOTS questions about the story. I have a comprehension ball that I would throw around to check for understanding.

Writing: For teaching the parts of a plant (which is part of our curriculum) I would have the students draw a large plant on their paper. They would need to label each part of the plant. (stem, root, leaves, flower) Then for their writing of a sentence (s) they would need to tell me one reason why roots are so important to a plant.

Hands-on activity: (Art) This would need to be completed in small groups. Use one sheet of green construction paper. At about 3 inches from the bottom place a line from side to side. Student would use already cut pieces of white string and glue them from the line down representing the roots. Then we would take a piece of cut pipe cleaner and glue it as a stem. I would have the children cut their own leaves out of green construction paper and glue them from the pipe cleaner. Then I could take a mini cupcake wrapper and glue it representing the flower. Then take sunflower seeds and glue them into the middle of the flower representing the seeds. Students then would add a sky and sun which a plant also needs to grow! You could even have the students label each part of the plant if time permits.

Prediction Chart: I would complete this before reading the book. I have a Mimio in my classroom so I would use Internet technology but if you don't have that luxury you could draw or print out pictures from the Internet. I would have carrots, radishes, turnips, beets, strawberries, watermelons and blueberries on the board. I would have the child make predictions which fruits and vegetables they thought would grow under the ground or above the ground. Then after reading the story we would check our predictions and change the fruits and vegetables to where they belong.

Science: Bring in white carnations for each student. Put them in colored water and place in the classroom. Have students make predictions about what is going to happen since it's in purple water. This lesson will show that the stem sucks up the purple water and disperses it to the flower because the white flower will turn purple!!!

United Streaming: (online program) I would use my Mimio to complete this activity! Type in Helpful Plants a 3:08 second video for grades k-2. Students will learn that plants need sunshine and water to live. This is a cartoon the students will really enjoy!

Potential problems or difficulties: This book is a little above the kindergarten level. I would need to bring it down to where they could understand. (Using lots of pictures and hands-on activities)

1 comment:

  1. Good idea to break up the book to focus on the parts of the plant one at a time.

    ReplyDelete

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