Assignment

Now we need to create and assignment for the students and incorporate another set of students from another place to get their perspective on the topic.
For gardening, different plants or crops can be planted in different parts of the world based on soil fertility, sunlight, and weather conditions in that region.
Maybe an assignment could be finding their latitude and longitude point, researching the climate of the region, then find two other climates and note what is different about soil and weather conditions in those places, and how that might affect gardening. Finding the latitude and longitude points could also be related to the map portion, and could even get into what kinds of plants and foods grow closest to the equator and what happens when they get farther away.
These are just a few ideas that popped into my head. Feel free to add on or throw out something totally different. Let's get this rolling! :)

My websites

http://www.kidsgardening.org/

This is the 1st site I did.. it is an awesome site for educators, the children and their families. The site gives resources, grant and fundraising options as well as classroom projects, parents corner and fun facts. This site would definitly be useful to the classroom and teacher.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson167.shtml


This site is a great site for teachers it has lesson plans as well as different activites for the children to do.

http://www.kidscom.com/

I thought this site would realy be able to help connect the classroom to home. You can build a virtual garden for your children. It is a free website and has sections for parents, students and educators. So not only can they work on the real garden in the classroom they will be able to have their very own virtual garden as well.


These are the 3 websites I will be evaluating.

Websites to be Evaluated

http://eartheasy.com/grow_gardening_children.htm

This website is a good resource for the teacher because it gives tips for what to grow in a garden and tips on getting the children involved.

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/firstgarden/


This website is a good resource for teachers and the student because it talks about the fundamentals of gardening, soil health, food, sunlight, tools, procedures, etc. as well as containing a teacher's guide.


http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_photosynthesis.html


this website is a good source for the students to learn about photosynthesis.


These are the websites I am evaluating

KidSpiration Concept Map

This is our preliminary concept map. 

Concept Map

Because I haven't heard from you James but I have such a busy day tomorrow, I'm going to open the program.  I'm going to open Kidspiration, I don't know if by downloading one you download both of them, but that's the link I'm clicking on, and I'm going to use the ideas we listed to create it and post it on here.  If you have any other ideas please post them tonight.

Assignment

Okay, so we need to brainstorm over this blog, the assignment is due tomorrow.  First we need to decide who is going to open either Kidspiration or Inspiration first.  I haven't touched either so please let me know if you have so I don't.  For gardening I would think the end result would be to create a real garden.  Some things they would have to learn along the way would be what plants would grow in our climate and how much sunlight and water they would need.  Also we could talk about parts of a plant, why plants are good for our planet, photosynthesis, pollenation, etc. What are your thoughts?