OBJECTIVE

Students will observe how their pea seeds change and grow from seed to harvest. They will measure and chart the weekly growth showing how the seeds grow over time.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

How do seeds grow?

MATERIALS NEEDED

Large easel paper with question “How many cubes tall are our peas?” and a chart to mark numbers of weeks and height of peas
Markers
Unifix cubes
Watering cans Pea Math

PROCEDURE

Introduction
Explain to students that it has been a few weeks since planting the peas, so we will check on them and see if they are growing. We are going to measure them and take care of them so they can continue to grow.
Demonstrate how to hold a stack of unifix cubes up to the something so that the cubes and the thing you are trying to measure are even. Demonstrate the cubes being too tall, the plant being too tall and then both being the same height. Once the cubes and plant are the same height, you can count the cubes to find out how many cubes tall the plant is.

Activity
Once in the garden have students start by observing the peas. What do they notice? What else is growing in the garden? Show them the chart with the question, “How many cubes tall are the peas?”
Hand out unifix cubes and have students work together to measure the peas. How many cubes tall are the peas they measured? Who has the tallest peas? If child 1 has a pea plant that’s 14 cubes tall, and child 2 has a pea plant that’s 15 cubes tall how many more cubes tall is child 2’s plant? Hold the stacks of cubes next to each other so they can do this visual math. Have fun with counting! Encourage students to measure other things in the garden such as height of the garden bed, garlic, etc. Have them work together to combine cubes if needed. What’s the tallest thing in the garden?

Wrap up/Assessment
At the end, chart on the paper how tall the peas were and mark how many weeks it has been since planting them.
Every time you are in the garden, have students measure the peas and keep track on the chart how many cubes tall the peas are.

FOLLOW UP & EXTENSIONS

Check with teachers to see if you can leave a box of cubes in the garden space so students can measure in the garden whenever they’d like.