The Carrot Seed Lesson Plan: What Plants Need to Grow?
The Storyline
The Carrot Seed is a classic story about perseverance. When a little boy plants a carrot seed, everyone tells him it won’t grow. He continues to care for his seed and eventually he is rewarded with an enormous carrot. It’s simple, repetitive text make it a great choice for shared reading with kindergarten and first graders, or simply as a read aloud with your students.
Lesson Preparation
This interactive writing lesson plan doubles as a science lesson on what seeds need to grow.
Materials
- The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
- Chart paper
- Markers
- A large piece of bulletin board paper
- Color paper
- Scissors
- Sentence strips
- Tape or glue
Lesson Procedures
Read the book to the class either as a read aloud or during shared reading. Discuss the story as you read. Some questions to ask are:
- Why do you think everyone tells him the seed won’t grow?
- Does he believe them? How do you know?
- What things does the boy do to take care of the seed?
- What do you think the boy and his family learned when the seed finally grew?
After reading the story ask the children to think about what things the seed needed to grow in the story - water, space (not to be crowded by weeds), time. Make a list on a piece of chart paper. Then ask if they can think of anything else plants might need to grow like sunlight and soil. Add any ideas to the list.
Tell the class that they will be working together to make a mural of the story. First brainstorm a list of the things they want to include in the mural, including the things plants need to grow. Some items to include are the characters, the carrot seed, weeds, watering can and water, and the sun. Assign groups of two or three students to make the different objects and characters with markers, glue, scissors and colored paper.
When everyone is finished, arrange the pictures on a large piece of bulletin board paper. Then use interactive writing to make a title for the mural and labels for the different pictures on sentence strips. Above the characters add the dialog, “I’m afraid it won’t grow.” Glue or tape the text to the mural and display the mural.
Assessment and Evaluation
For an easy assessment, have the children write about what seeds need to grow in their science notebooks or journals.
As a great lesson to further the learning try some of these fun ideas to go with the book The Carrot Seed.
References
- Teacher experience.
This post is part of the series: Plants for the Primary Grades
Find lesson plans and activties to go along with a plant unit for first or second grade students.
