All 18 plants have healthy sprouts!

Each student has been keeping a "Plant Journal" to write about the whole process... observing the seed, telling how to plant the seed and what it needs be healthy, making diagrams of the plant and telling how each part helps it survive, recording how their plant grows everyday (believe it or not you can easily see daily changes).

That is what I required them to do, along the way they came up with more ideas-

*Naming their plants
(everything from their own name to Lebron James to Buddy)

*Saving seeds from fruit they eat
We have a whole collection waiting to be planted!

*Writing poems to and about their plants

*Reading books and poems to their plants
This spread like wildfire! One second, a little girl asked if she could read "Seed, Sprout, Flower" (from her Poetry Journal) to her plant. The next second I heard, "teacher...my plant is growing! I see it!" Within a minute they had all followed suit and become *convinced* that this is helping their plants grow. They are very insistent that the plant moves or wiggles while they read. I deduced that the wiggling is from them holding the cup, but I kept that to myself.

*Making math story problems about our plants
"I have 5 pumpkin plants and 13 corn plants. How many plants in all?"
"We have 18 plants. 14 plants have already sprouted. How many have not sprouted?

I told my principal about this and she was so tickled that she came down to take pictures of the kids with their plants!