Salt Dough Plant Cell Extravaganza!

On Friday, we got together to make salt dough cell replicas with our 7th grade peers as part of our team's "Fun Friday" activity. We are extremely fortunate to be on a grade level team that works to include our class in group activities on a regular basis. We have some truly awesome teachers who can see our kids' abilities the way we do!

We prepped all week in anticipation! We began by reading all about our old pal, Simon, and his visit to a farm. We learned about consumers and producers and how plants produce their own food. 

 

We answered some comprehension questions to show what we learned.

 Then we took some time to talk about the basics of what a plant cell is and how it works.

We headed outside (in some beautiful weather!) to find different things to replicate the parts of the plant cell.

 We grabbed leaves, rocks, sticks, etc.

 We searched high and low...

 And stopped to share our finds!

 Next, we headed into the kitchen to make salt dough for our plant cells.

 We shaped the dough into rectangles with some help from our peers.

We pressed our leaves, sticks, rocks and berries into the dough.

 We did our best work and were proud of ourselves!

  We had a great time hanging out with our 7th grade friends and working hard on this project.

 What a blast to participate in a grade level project!

 Here's our end result!

 

And our display...

Huge thanks to our wonderful team for including our class in this fun activity. Moments like these remind me of why I became a special education teacher. I felt so proud of my group and also proud of the seventh graders (and our sixth grade peers) who made our class feel like part of the team.