Green Thumb in Greenhouse Production - Week Two!

Monday morning started as usual. Attendance was taken, students went to breakfast and I chatted to Mrs. Cambruzzi about our weekends. I was very excited this Monday. I could finally use the lesson plans that I had been working so hard on last semester and put them to the test. Period two came around, which was the Introduction to Agriculture class. During this period, Mrs. Cambruzzi and I decided to co-teach. She took charge of the students who decided to complete their junior prepared public speaking speeches, and I took over the creed students. I basically had the students work independently and just repeat the creed over and over again.

This worked for quite a while, until I saw the boys loosing focus. I then had them work in pairs. This seemed to work best. I also tried other games, but instantly got the feedback that it wouldn't help the students learn the creed. Renee and I did this every class period that we had intro to ag, every day and all week long. I then took over the greenhouse class. I even brought cupcakes in to talk about identifying the cupcakes and how that is similar to plant identification.

The bell had rung, and I had 5 students.  Just 5. Apparently, the other half of my class had testing on that Monday and Tuesday. So the first two days of the week I went through my lesson and my students were great. They were somewhat shy at first, but they have definitely warmed up to me. On Wednesday was the first day I finally had the entire class together. I caught everyone up who had missed class, and we proceeded. Thursday I had students work on their powerpoint projects of identifying plants. It was perfect for their age because they were honestly interested in having more plant ID knowledge. On Friday, I held a lab where I had the students dissect seeds of monocots and dicots.

Lets start this out by saying, THIS WAS AWESOME. I had lima beans soaked in water over night, hard limas, pine nuts and corn all together. I went through some worksheets with the kids to help them understand the differences between monocots and dicots, and then we dissected the seeds. I had them tape it to the worksheets, and they really understood it. It was awesome to see them working together like that.

Next week, I will be picking up the class floral design. I plan on teaching principles of floral design and vase arranging. Soon, we will be creating vases for Valentines day to be selling. My greenhouse class will continue working on monocots and dicots, and we will be talking about perfect and imperfect flowers. Week two is done! I can't wait to see what week 3 has in store!