Making a Mother's Day Gift That's Also Educational

It's almost Mother's Day (May 8th!) and with that being said, it's time to plan a great classroom Mother's Day gift! My favorite gift involves some educational activities too!

Truffula Trees from The Lorax!

If you're doing gifts, why not tie in Earth Day and Mother's Day? I love to read The Lorax and then plant "Truffula Seeds" for the moms (or grandmas or dads!) You can read more about what I've done in the past, here. It's a great time to discuss our impact on the environment and what we can do to be better to our Mother Nature.

We plant some seeds in order to get more plants and flowers into the world! Some fast growing seeds include sunflowers, daisies, or zinnias. They typically sprout within 5-7 days (!!!!). I buy cheap pots, some acrylic paint, seeds, and soil to prepare. Then, I spend a day decorating and painting the pots with my students. The next day we plant our seeds in their pots using the soil and whichever seeds I've chosen!

Using my Plant Power lesson plans, students track the growth of their plant. From there we'll spend a few weeks measuring the growth, and the mean, median, and mode of the plant's height. It always helps my kiddos get more comfortable with these important math ideas and it's fun! Be sure to order your supplies (via Amazon Prime) this week in order to have flowers by Mother's Day!