Stage 1 Follow-up Activities

Emphasis on Living and non-living things

There are many activities that can be explored following the students visit and information gathering at ErinEarth. There are lots of games, power point presentations and graphically presented information on the ‘characteristics of plants and animals’ to be found on Google.

Plants

1. Make a chart of the different categories of plants they saw at ErinEarth: vegetables, water plants, trees, shrubs, grasses.

• Visit the www.floraforfauna.com.au website. This may be useful in helping the students think about developing their school garden.

1. Plant bean seeds in the classroom and expose them to different conditions: light/no light, sun/shade, water/no water. Measure and record the beans’ development over a four week period noting the varying causes and effects of different conditions.
2. Take a walk around their own school grounds to discover the different kinds of plants in their environment. Encourage students to make comparisons between the school grounds and what they saw at ErinEarth.
   Have a critical look at the plant life in the school grounds under the following headings:
   How many of our plants are Australian natives?
   Do the plants we have attract bird life?
3. Does the garden environment provide a range of different habitats suitable for different kinds of animals?
4. Can the plants in our school garden survive without lots of water?
5. Make a list of suggestions about how the garden could be changed and developed.
6. Identify and discuss (with samples) the different parts of a plant and their purposes eg. roots, flowers, seeds, stem, leaves and fruit. Use a sample plant (complete with roots) and magnifying glasses to examine specimen.
7. As a follow-up to this activity encourage the children to collect pictures of plant food.
8. Make a chart showing the six different parts of a plant that we eat. The students could then glue their pictures into the correct category.
9. Encourage students to compare the parts of different plants.
10. Discuss the differences between fruit and vegetables (have samples available). (A fruit is what a flower becomes after it is pollinated. The seeds for the plant are inside the fruit.) Vegetables provide different parts of the plant for us to eat.
    eg. Carrots are roots.
    Asparagus stalks are stems.
    Lettuces consist of leaves.
    Onions are bulbs.
    There are foods we often call vegetables when cooking that are really fruits because they contain seeds inside. Encourage the students to think what these might be.
    Is fungi/mushroom a plant? If so, how is it different from other plants?

Animals

1. Observe and record the many animals that share your garden or the school grounds.
2. Find ways to encourage more animals to share your garden.

• • Make a bird feeder. (www.canteach.ca/elementary/life.html)
  • Provide logs and rocks for lizards and small animals to make their homes.
  • Grow native trees and shrubs that give food and shelter to native fauna. (www.floraforfauna)

3. Find out more about the local fauna Eg. Birds, frogs, butterflies and lizards. (hyperlink - ErinEarth)

4. Develop a chart of birds and animals seen in the school grounds.

5. Research and construct a reference list of local flora and fauna.

6. Using the worksheets students used at ErinEarth, they could construct charts that show different characteristics of both plants and animals and then compare these for similarities and differences.

7. Encourage students to compare the body parts of different animals and discuss why they are the way they are.

8. Develop a topic on animal feet. Start with those that they are familiar with like cat, dog, bird, duck, chook, human etc. Explore all the different kinds of feet and discuss their characteristics and then elicit from the students why the animal feet are the way they are.

Exploring Habitats

1. Make a chart (students own drawings) of all the different animal habitats that they found at ErinEarth.
2. Encourage students to think about different kinds of human habitats in Wagga Wagga.
3. Explore different kinds of building materials.
4. Make a mud brick. (S1 Resource Sheet: How to Make a Mud Brick p.56)

General Activities

1. Prepare an Assembly item about the students visit to ErinEarth.
2. Students could be encouraged to record interesting things about their visit to ErinEarth to put on the Kids section of the ErinEarth website.
3. Students might send an email to ErinEarth indicating their response to their visit.
4. Students might set up an exhibition of what they have learnt about plants and animals and invite Stage 2 students in to look at and talk about their display.

Back to For Teachers, Stage 1 Programme