Companion Resources

This book has large pictures and fun text to introduce scientific words in a simple way. The book teaches about stages of plant growth, flowers, and seeds.

Students use this template to create a pop-up game to reinforce agricultural concepts concerning various plants and animals. Templates are available for apples, cows, dairy, pigs, sheep, and turkeys. Teachers can use the blank template to create their own pop-ups to reinforce concepts and understanding for any area of study.

This three-page informational sheet describes the processes of how an animal grows, how it gets from the farm to the store, and what products are produced from that animal. Words and simple graphics are used to portray this information for beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, and turkeys. Print your own or order a set of 30" x 8" printed charts from agclassroomstore.com.

Help your students understand how the fiber in their clothing, towels, and sheets comes from cotton plants. The seeds must be removed from the cotton fibers to make cloth. This process is called ginning (after Eli Whitney's cotton gin; gin is short for engine). The cotton bolls in this kit may be hand ginned, or dissected, allowing students to experience the process of hand ginning, understand the significance of the cotton gin, and explain how machines help us today to be more productive. Each kit contains a classroom set of individually wrapped cotton bolls. Each cotton boll can easily be pulled apart into four distinct sections so that a group of four students may use one cotton boll. Teacher Note: The purpose of this activity is to investigate cotton, the process of hand ginning cotton, and the impacts of the cotton gin. Adjusting this investigation into a role-play or simulation of a slave activity is absolutely discouraged. In addition, no student should be required to participate in hand ginning cotton. We recommend consulting your administrator and/or communicating with parents prior to presenting this lesson. You may want to consider ginning as a teacher demonstration if you anticipate tension or uncomfortable feelings. For more information concerning teaching about the history of African Enslavement, refer to research conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center Teaching Hard History: American Slavery. Order this kit online from agclassroomstore.com.

Stimulate your students’ creativity with beeswax modeling clay. This kit contains the recipe and enough beeswax, coconut oil, and lanolin to make 36 portions of all-natural modeling clay that softens with the warmth of your hands. Beeswax clay can be reused again and again. Containers are included for storage. Order this kit online from agclassroomstore.com.

Simulate the role worker bees play in pollination by conducting a pollination simulation. Each kit includes pompoms, cups, jewel bags, yarn, and straws for 32 elementary students. Order this kit online from agclassroomstore.com.

If you are a teacher who creates educational books with your children, try creating the About Cattle, About Sheep, About Chickens, About Pigs, and About Goats books. Some of the books provide pages ready to color, others require the names of the animals be written, and other pages ask students to glue down feed samples or wool products. The books provide an opportunity to talk about animal needs, uses, offspring, seasonal changes, etc. The package of materials includes ready-to-copy booklet masters and enough samples of wool, hay, straw, cattle, pig, and chicken feed for the entire class to create the booklets. Order this kit online from agclassroomstore.com.

This kit contains a one-page coloring and activity sheet for kindergarten and first-grade-age students, complete with wool, felt, grain and other feed samples for students to paste into place. Order this kit online from agclassroomstore.com.

A young boy raises orphaned lambs. The text showcases that raising sheep is hard work. He makes sure the sheep get the attention they need to grow healthy and strong. It is a solid depiction of raising orphaned lambs and integrating them into a sheep herd. It also showcases how Cass keeps good records of his animals and shows them at the county fair.

George Washington Carver often said, "A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place." From humble beginnings, Carver became one of the greatest scientists in the United States. His dedication to helping his people led him to find over three hundred uses for the peanut and over one hundred uses for the sweet potato. A simple biography of the man born a slave, who became a scientist and devoted his entire life to helping the South improve its agriculture.

A Seed is Sleepy offers a beautiful and informative look at the intricate, complex, and often surprising world of seeds by introducing a fascinating array of seed and plant facts.

A first look at the plant cycle has never been so fun. In this book a colorful parade of inquisitive insects follow the progress of a sunflower seed in their first look at the life cycle of a sunflower. This book accompanies lessons on life cycles and seeds.