Washington Native Plant Society: Education Activities for Second Grade

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Education Activities for Second Grade

Theme: Exploring native plants

Activity	Description	Materials (PDF)
Dead or Alive?	Students learn that plants that appear to be dead may actually be dormant. Students learn how to distinguish the difference between a dormant plant and a dead plant. This activity encourages students to be careful near plants while conducting activities in habitat areas.	Q&E Activity Images
Meet Douglas Fir	While students are sitting at the base of a Douglas fir tree in the habitat area they listen to one or more children’s stories about the Douglas fir tree while viewing related images. Guiding questions help students focus their attention, test comprehension and emphasize main themes. Students use drawings and graphic organizers to show understanding.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Story Images Master Matrix Life Cycle
Meet Bigleaf Maple	After meeting ‘Douglas Fir’, students now meet ‘Bigleaf Maple’. While students are sitting at the base of a bigleaf maple tree in the habitat area they listen to one or more children’s stories about maple trees while viewing related images. Guiding questions help students focus their attention, test comprehension and emphasize main themes. Students use drawings and graphic organizers to show understanding and to compare differences between Douglas fir and bigleaf maple trees.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Images Master Life Cycle Venn
Evergreen and Deciduous Leaves	Students consider the difference between evergreen and deciduous leaves as represented by Douglas fir and bigleaf maple and other native plants from the habitat area. The class creates models of evergreen and deciduous leaves and conducts an experiment to help understand how these leaves are different. Students compare these results to live leaf samples.	Q&E Activity How-To-Do Images
Evergreen and Deciduous Walk	Students use their knowledge about characteristics of evergreen and deciduous leaves to find evergreen and deciduous plants in the habitat area. Students sort these plants by characteristics and create rules for belonging to evergreen or deciduous groups.	Q&E Activity
Leaf Discovery Drawing	Students increase their knowledge about leaves by creating a leaf rubbing of one leaf from the habitat area. Students use the characteristics of their leaf to name their leaf rubbing, and to tell others why they named it. Students use this rubbing and its description as ‘clues’ to find their plant in the forest during the Leaf Discovery Walk II activity.	Q&E Activity Rubbing Images Chart Matrix
Leaf Discovery Walk I	Students observe characteristics of native plants by looking at leaf shape, edges and texture; as well as plant form. Then, students record this information to learn basic taxonomic terminology and the details on which to focus when using leaves for plant identification. Leaf Discovery Walk I activity familiarizes students with the skills and language necessary for Leaf Discovery Walk II.	Q&E Activity Images Worksheet
Leaf Discovery Walk II	Students use the leaf rubbing they made in Leaf Discovery Drawing as a ‘clue’, along with their new awareness of leaf characteristics, to find the plant from which the leaf originated. They use an observation form to record plant characteristic information. Students may conduct further research about their plant.	Q&E Activity Worksheet
Meet My Plant	Students create a journal entry about a plant they observe and study in the habitat area. The journal entry includes a drawing, a rubbing, imaginary name, real name and interesting information about the plant (e.g., wildlife uses, size, plant type, ethnobotany, etc.) This activity can serve as a basis for numerous extension activities.	Q&E Activity Drawing Journal

The native plant education materials provided on this page were developed by Starflower Foundation.