Making a Mother's Day Gift That's Also Educational

It's almost Mother's Day (May 8th!) and with that being said, it's time to plan a great classroom Mother's Day gift! My favorite gift involves some educational activities too!

Truffula Trees from The Lorax!

If you're doing gifts, why not tie in Earth Day and Mother's Day? I love to read The Lorax and then plant "Truffula Seeds" for the moms (or grandmas or dads!) You can read more about what I've done in the past, here. It's a great time to discuss our impact on the environment and what we can do to be better to our Mother Nature.

We plant some seeds in order to get more plants and flowers into the world! Some fast growing seeds include sunflowers, daisies, or zinnias. They typically sprout within 5-7 days (!!!!). I buy cheap pots, some acrylic paint, seeds, and soil to prepare. Then, I spend a day decorating and painting the pots with my students. The next day we plant our seeds in their pots using the soil and whichever seeds I've chosen!

Using my Plant Power lesson plans, students track the growth of their plant. From there we'll spend a few weeks measuring the growth, and the mean, median, and mode of the plant's height. It always helps my kiddos get more comfortable with these important math ideas and it's fun! Be sure to order your supplies (via Amazon Prime) this week in order to have flowers by Mother's Day!

The Lorax

So, I feel a little nerdy, but I AM SO EXCITED for The Lorax to come out tomorrow!  It looks so stinkin' cute!  I will be seeing it this weekend- I can already taste the popcorn :) 

In honor of the new movie and Dr. Seuss' birthday, we started a fun science activity today (since we don't have school on Friday, Dr. Seuss' real birthday).  First, I read, The Lorax.  I seriously almost tear up every time I read it! 

After reading the story, we talked about ways we could make a difference in the world and why the world needs trees, like Truffula Trees.  Then, I told my class I had a bag of Truffula Seeds for us to plant! We were all excited! 

They each got to place soil and their seed into a small plastic pot.  They were lovin' it!  Everyone was so careful when placing the soil in their pots and then again when planting their seeds.  Sooo cute!

As their “Truffula Trees” grow, we will take weekly measurements of the seedling and graph the mean, median, and mode height of our class’ seedlings.  (I'm planning on sending the flowers home in decorated pots for Mother's Day in May!)

As if this day wasn't exciting enough, we had a "Winter Weather Warning" and mini-blizzard beginning right when school began and ending just after lunch recess.  LOOOTS of indoor recess for us today.  I was proud of my kiddo's semi- attentiveness this afternoon with all the time spent inside today.  I *love* snow, however, and couldn't stop looking out the window all day!

 But THIS is what it looked like before I left this evening... weather here is CRAAAZY.

Happy Dr. Seuss Day to Y'all!


- Kelly Anne