With the warm weather finally here to stay, you can take your students outside to enjoy the sun and some gardening! OISE Library has a large selection of materials you can use to connect lessons on gardening and planting to life systems, math and other subjects.
Use our now fully stocked Seed Library to grow a school or community garden with your students! OISE has a number of helpful books that will show you how to start your garden project, such as “Setting up and running a school garden: a manual for teachers, parents and communities”. This book includes details about plant needs, optimal conditions for a garden site, and how to prepare and eat the food you grow! You can also check out “Edible Schoolyards: a Universal Idea”, “Potatoes on Rooftops: Farming in the City”, “How to grow a school garden” and “The Good Garden” for more ideas on how to create a sustainable community garden.
Turn you garden into a learning opportunity and discover ways to use your garden as a metaphor in “Learning Gardens and Sustainability Education”. You can also discover ways to develop skills through gardening for children with autism spectrum disorder and special needs with “Gardening for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Special Educational Needs”. This book offers teachers and parents a gardening program that provides learning experiences, and outlines the positive physical, cognitive and social benefits of gardening.
OISE Library also has a number of beautifully illustrated children’s books related to gardening, including “Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt” by Kate Messner, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal. Explore the garden throughout the seasons, and watch plants grow and flourish up in the garden and discover the busy world down in the dirt. You can also check out “Lucy’s Secret Garden”, “Little Yellow Pear Tomatoes”, “How Groundhog’s Garden Grew” , “Whose Garden Is it”, and “In the Garden: Who’s Been here?”.
Gardening can also be used to teach literacy, math, science, and art! Find ways to incorporate gardening into your lesson plans with “Garden Classroom: Hands-On Activities in Math, Science, Literacy & Art”, “Hands-On Science and Math” and “Cultivating a Child’s Imagination Through Gardening”. Each of these books highlights how you can use gardening focused activities to develop skills and knowledge in a large range of subject areas for students in kindergarten to grade 4.
Include a fun and interactive dimension to teaching your students about plants with “Arty Facts: Plants & Art Activities”. This activity and craft filled book covers all topics about plants, from leaves to tree nurseries, fossils to spouting seeds. Each chapter includes a brief introduction to the topic, highlighting key terms that can be found in the glossary of the book, and activities and crafts with picture guided instructions and a list of required materials.
You can also focus on developing your students understanding of plants with “Plants: Flowering Plants, Ferns, Mosses, and Other Plants” by Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone. Part of the “A Class of Their Own” series of books which takes a close-up look at the six major classification of living organisms, this book describes the main groups of plants and includes special sections that highlight the role of plants in the environment. Full of vibrant and detailed pictures, this book offers a great overview of the subject and is a great resource to use for teaching students grade 7-8 about plants.
Take your instruction even further and get down to the molecular level of plants with the Plant Cell model activity kit at OISE library. This kit includes a preassembled 3D model of a plant cell with different colors for each feature of the cell, making it easier for students to be able to distinguish between the various features of the cell. Also included in the kit is a booklet with a brief introduction to the features of a plant cell and fun activities that will help your students understand concepts such as osmosis and food storage. This kit is great for students Grade 6-10 and will bring a fun and interactive aspect to your lesson.
From creating your own community garden to teaching students about the biology of plants, OISE Library has all the resources you need to help you make gardening into a learning experience for your students. All of these and many more materials can be found in the book display case on the Ground Floor of OISE Library. They are available for check out too! Simply speak with the Circulation staff at the Service Desk and they’ll help you out!