Botany in the (Almost) Spring

We love to tie our Botany lessons to the growing season, and in Florida, it can start as early as January!  A wonderful way to begin is to go on a nature walk to collect leaves.  We then sort and classify the leaves by various attributes (length, width, color, margins, etc.).  The students concretely experience the myriad variations of leaves and come away from the lesson inspired to observe botany in other settings.


After gathering leaves with a partner, the students sort and classify the leaves.

Here, we are sharing the Parts of a Seed lesson with a group of students.  They love to "dissect" a lima bean that has been soaked in water to discover the parts of a seed.  We also use the class microscope to look at the first leaves up close.





We will follow this lesson with the Parts of a Flower, Parts of a Leaf, Parts of  Fruit and Life Cycle of a Plant lessons in the weeks to come.

Word Study

Word Study Resources

In training, we learned about the importance of the Word Study materials (independent practice for concepts such as antonyms, synonyms, contractions, alphabetical order, etc.).  I've developed two sets of Word Study that address the Common Core standards for public Montessori- available in our TeachersPayTeachers store.  Level A is for first and second year students and Level B is a more advanced version- it allows the students to practice and apply the concepts.

Here is a free sample of the Contractions Level A and B so you can see the difference between the levels!

Level A- Contractions                                                      Level B- Contractions