Adaptations - Grasses

Focus Grasses are uniquely adapted to withstand the challenges of climate and browsing animals. Members of the grass family produce grains, a vital food source.

Puppets (Benjy Bear, Foxtail Grass, Crab Grass, Panic Grass)
Note: Puppet show is not in Hands-On Nature! Script and puppet templates are in the Coordinator's binder with other supplementary material or download here as a pdf file.

Materials Checklist
Puppet show (puppets, script, hunt card prop, hand lens, two chalk-filled erasers) Focus on Features (freshly dug grass plants with roots, other grass-like plants - iris, sedges, rushes, cattails)
Grasses in Pictures (slide show, projector, screen)
Build a Grass Plant (bond paper or newsprint, tape, glue, scissors, poster board)
Grass Mix and Match (hand lenses, 5-6 different grasses with seed heads, sets of cards with photocopies of same grasses)
Stalk the Grass (paper, pencils, clipboards, hand lenses, sharp shovels or trowels, Stalk the Grass cards)
Grass Weaving (frames for weaving - forked sticks, yarn, grasses and other decorative plants)
Grass Survey (5/6 ELF) (large white cloth, grasses field guides, white 9x12 card stock, tacky or white glue, herbarium labels)
Snack (foods made from grains and grasses - popcorn, rice cakes, cereals, crackers, unprocessed grains)

Supplementary Reference Materials (Slide show scripts, Grades K-2, Grades 3-6; Stalk the Grass search cards; 5/6 ELF Activity: Grass Survey))

Additional Reading/Resources
Grasses, An Identification Guide, by Lauren Brown, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1979.
How to Identify Grasses and Grass-like Plants, Sedges and Rushes, by H.D. Harrington, illustrated by A. Steely, Ohio University Press, 1997.
Amazing Grains, by Joanne Saltzman, H.J. Kramer Publishing, 1990.
ELF Corner: The Many Uses of Cattails (pdf file)

For Younger Children
Many of the activities in VINS's new Small Wonders book can be used in ELF, too. To find appropriate activities for children aged 3-6, click here.

Teaching suggestions
Puppet Show Rather than clapping together two chalky erasers, put a bit of corn starch on a yogurt container lid and blow it into the air.

Focus on Features
Be sure to bring in a tall Phragmites as an example of a grass. Also bring in cattail plus some rushes and sedges for non-grasses.

Corn's flowering design is very unusual, though the stem and leaves are great for viewing grass adaptations.

Hand out one grass plant to each child so all can see and feel at the same time.

The little rhyming poem only makes sense if folks SEE a rush and a sedge. You may want to leave out the poem with younger kids.

Side note: timothy grass is named for Timothy Hanson, an English farmer who promoted its use for hay

Grass Mix and Match
You can keep sets of grasses together with wire twisties.

Alternative presentation: Put together bundles with 6 or 8 grasses each. Give a bundle to each small group (2 or 3) of kids. Place photocopies of the different grasses around the room. Groups circulate among the pictures and leave their matching grass at the appropriate photocopy. When all were sorted, give each group one type of grass and its photocopy and have them make up a descriptive name for their grass.

Make this more challenging by including a photocopy that matches none of the grasses. However, it's NOT a good idea to include grasses with no matching photocopy unless it's really obvious!

Build a Grass Plant
Give each group green and beige construction paper, some yarn, and some tape.

For younger children, give each pipe cleaners, construction paper, little yarn pom-poms, yarn, and tape, so they can make their own model grass to take home.

Stalk the Grass
When heading outside, have students pretend to be grass pollen grains floating on the breeze.

You can create a pictorial hunt. Ahead of time, gather all species of grasses you can find on the school grounds and make photocopies of these. Reduce copies so all species fit on a sheet of paper, then challenge children to find the matching species outside. Hunts like this need to be customized to each schoolyard.

Grass Weaving
Make one large weaving frame, with a top and bottom dowel (you can use long tree branches or sections of sapling) hanging on the wall with twine or yarn wound top to bottom. Place the frame next to a hallway exit door so each student can weave their grass into the construction as they come back inside.

Twine seems to stay on branches better than yarn.

Younger kids like to bring home their own weaving. In class, divide group into smaller groups, and give each a grocery bag filled with grasses and an old sheet. Have small groups gather around an old sheet on the floor and spill their bag of grasses onto this for the students to select from.

Some volunteers have children create a grasses bouquet, similar to what we do in Winter Weeds, rather than doing the weaving.

Give the children poster board backgrounds of green hills and blue sky. Children add cotton clouds, yellow paper suns, bark for trees and an assortment of grasses taped on. Then cover the tape by gluing on another lower, green rolling hill.

Extensions
You can make Chia pets by planting grass seed in the toe of a non-reinforced-toe nylon. Drop in some grass seed and then some potting soil. Cut and tie off the hosiery. Decorate the face with googly eyes and button nose and mouth.

Suggest that the art teacher do Sumi-e painting of bamboo on rice paper with the students.

With older children, try Grass Pantomime: divide children into small groups. Hand out cards naming something that can be made from grass. Each student acts out the object on their card while small groups try to guess. Possible objects: broom, grass skirt, thatched roof, grass hut, cereal, spaghetti, popcorn, fishing pole, flute, lawn, hay, bread, etc.

Learning Goals

Concepts/Ideas:

• Grasses have unique characteristics and adaptations that contribute to their success in a wide range of habitats.
• There are many kinds of grasses, some of which can be differentiated by their seed heads.
• Humans and other animals depend on grass plants for food and other products.

Vocabulary:

Adaptation, Grass, Stem, Node, Sheath, Roots, Rhizome, Pollen, Stamen, Anther, and Pistil, Seed.

Skills:

• Close examination of grasses to observe their unique characteristics
• Active listening and observation to understand specific adaptations of grasses
• Creating a model using paper, glue, scissors and poster board that illustrates the characteristic structure of grass plants
• Comparing and contrasting different varieties of grasses
• Observing grass plants outdoors and recording variations and adaptations
• Discussing the importance of grass plants to humans and other animals

Grade Expectations:
Grades PK-K (S30, S38) Grasses are living plants. They require nourishment, sunlight, water and air to survive.

Grades 1-2 (S30, 38) Grasses are a group of plants that all have a similar structure. Grasses' unique structures make it possible for them to survive in a wide range of habitats.

Grades 3-4 (S30, S38, S39) Grasses have physical characteristics that make it possible for them to acquire what they need to survive in their environment. There are many different kinds of grasses; they may be grouped according to similarities in their seed heads.

Grades 5-6 (S38) Many kinds of grasses may grow together in one area; they may be grouped according to similarities in structure and identified by specific characteristics.

Return to October ELF