Synopsis: Did you know that a sunflower head can contain more than 1000 seeds? Grade 2 students were put into partners and tasked with breaking down a sunflower head and counting the seeds. Studetns quickly learned that counting by 1 would take forever. Therefore, we put the seeds into groups of 10 and then counted by 10s to get to our final number. Students were tasked with representing that number in many ways (using base ten blocks, expanded form, and number words). Students measured the height of the sunflower heads using a ruler and blocks as well.

We also took our seeds and practiced spelling our sight words with them,  as well as wrote about our sunflower heads using our senses and instructional writing. 

The final piece of the puzzle was using our harvested seeds to create artwork inspired by the sunflowers them selves. Sunflower seeds spiral outwards from the center, our artwork reflects this.