Discovering Our World

Last year our class got a grant to build a garden. It was a great way to teach academics to my autistic children. This year we planted a salad garden. The students will observe the growth and harvest the garden. When the garden is harvested we will invite parents and school personnel to come help us enjoy our feast. The garden unit will include lessons on Life Science; “Eating our Way Through Botany”, Earth Science: “Dirt and Water Detectives”, Physical Science: “See the Light” and “Living in a Greenhouse”. Most of the above lessons come from the book Dirt – Cheap Science by Esther Weiner. “Eat Your Way Through Botany” is a mini unit where the students munch and crunch their way through the major parts of different plants. The class as a whole and those that can do it individually will record their observations of edible roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruit. Then they will create their own book.
Having a digital camera to take pictures every step of the way will greatly enhance this unit. The Tool Factory Workshop components will be used in this manner. The Word Processor will make individual picture books for the garden stories. The Spread Sheet voice can be incorporated into a computer disk library to read the stories that a child selects to review. All the photographs will be catalogued in the Data Base feature and can be recalled at will to reuse. The Painter will be used to substitute clip art or produce digital photos for the student's workbooks. The Bank Manager will be utilized to configure stories and photos to the student's developmental level and learning ability.
Lesson 1 - In this lesson you need potted plants for each student, a slice of carrot and a whole carrot. Our garden will replace the potted plants. One plant will be pulled from our garden to show the students the roots. We will discuss how the soil sticks to the roots and what a root does for a plant (anchorage, absorb water and nutrients). Each child will be given a slice of carrot and a whole carrot. The whole carrot needs to have the stem and roots attached if possible. The students will be encouraged to observe the carrot slice and draw it in their booklet. Next they will observe the whole carrot especially the fine root hairs sticking out from the carrot. A discussion of what the roots do for the carrot will take place, using their voice, aided language or PECS. Next the students will eat the slice of carrot and vote on the most noticeable taste by choosing from the following: sweet, bitter, salty, salty and sour. Choices will be made verbally or by their PECS (picture exchange system) where possible. Some student’s choices will be reduced depending on ability level (sweet or salty). Results will be tabulated on the board and graphed. Pictures of our own plants in our garden will greatly help my autistics child understanding. Also pictures of our hands on experiments etc will help the students to write about and understand what they have done. Finally the students will complete the cloze story in their books on roots. Lessons on each part of the plant will follow the same format.
Math will be incorporated by measuring and graphing growth. Of course reading and writing will be a part of everything we do. Life skills will be taught in many areas including preparing the meal and serving it.

Learning objectives for students according to their skills and developmental levels include:

Language Arts:
1. The student will complete a cloze story by writing the correct word or matching the correct PECS picture to complete the story.
2. The student will write a weekly news report about the garden and how it has changed either in words or pictures.
3. The student will answer basic retell question verbally, with aidend language or pictures about the garden.

Math
1. The student will read, write, model and compute with non-negative rational
numbers.
2. The student will use non-standard units of measure (length, capacity, mass, area,
perimeter) and tell time.
3. The learner will understand and use graphs, probability and data analysis.

Science:
1. The learner will make observations and conduct investigations to build an
understanding of the needs of living organisms.
2. The learner will conduct investigation and use appropriate technology to build
and understanding of the composition and uses of rocks and minerals.
3. The learner will make observations and conduct investigations to build an
understanding of the properties and relationship of objects.