Ornamental Kale blooming in January in Washington, DC. |
Required for Observation in The Classroom: A complete cabbage plant with a close heart. A complete cabbage plant in flower, if possible. Cabbage seeds. A knife. Various leaf-buds or a video showing same things.
Method of Student Observation:
- Compare with other roots previously examined.
- Examine the stem, cutting and breaking it when necessary. Compare with other stems previously examined.
- Let each child examine a leaf, and describe it. Arrangement of veins and absence of fibers to be noted.
- Explain that the parts eaten have no fibres, and are therefore soft.
- Make a longitudinal section of the cabbage, to show how the leaves are folded. Compare with other leaf- buds.
- Exhibit a cabbage plant in flower, and let the flowers be examined by the children. (The cabbage in flower may be obtained in the spring.) Show the seed-vessels and the seeds of the cabbage.
How to Grade Study Notes For Student Journals: Every student will need a journal to write in weekly for this online nature study series. Teacher will assign the weekly content in advance.
- Make sure the facts are: written in complete sentences, the first word of each sentence capitalized, and a period should be included at the end of each sentence.
- Spell check your vocabulary and write the words correctly.
- Dress up your journal entries with student clip art, drawings of your own in color or in black and white.
- Student may also include photographs of their own taking for extra credit.
Look for the following facts about the cabbage inside of student journals. Assign a point value to the quality of the content.
- Root - Branched. Fibrous. White.
- Stem or Stalk - Thick. Green outside. In part fibrous and tough. In part brittle and without fibers. White within.
- Leaves - Much wrinkled. Midrib thick, running through the middle. Veins branched, forming a network. Leaves not fibrous, but brittle. Outer leaves green. Inner leaves white, and folded closely together, forming a large bud.
- Flowers - If the cabbage is allowed to remain in the ground for a long time, the bud opens and forms a tall, green, branched stem, bearing yellow flowers. The seed-vessels are formed from the central part of the flowers. The seeds produce new plants.
Video at Youtube for Students to Watch:
- Cabbage growing time lapse, 100 days by Real Time Lapse
- Ornamental Cabbage & Kale Facts by MisStateExtension
Stain and Assemble Coffee Filter Cabbages: I prefer to use watercolor or acrylic paints for this craft because these are already ''color fast.'' This is the key advantage to using artist paints of any kind. I know that once the paints are dry on the filters, these will not rub off on anything else.
Dye will stain things that they rub up against if they are not either washed again to remove what doesn't take on a filter or if the dye is not properly made stable by the addition of a fixative.
A decorative, coffee filter cabbage for arranging on a table, wreath or display. |
- package of white coffee filters
- white school glue
- green and magenta non-toxic acrylic paints or watercolors
- bag of cotton balls
- chenille stems
- masking tape
- Prepare a kitchen space or a space next to a sink in a classroom.
- Soak each coffee filter for 30 seconds. You can do this with an entire stack if you are willing to take the time to peal the filters apart, one from another, before ''dying'' these in the paint.
- The acrylic paint should be of a liquid-like consistency before using in this craft. So, you may need to water it down a bit before puddling the paint on a kitchen tray. To make your colors more intense on the filters you may repeat this process being described over and over until you are happy with the results. Coffee filters are actually quite durable.
- Puddle the paints in a dish, tray or cookies sheet. Tent the wet coffee filter, one at a time, so that it looks like a teepee. The edges should be facing down to grab the most intense paint color. The paint will seep upward towards the peaked center fold as the filter drys. Don't worry about the paint left in the tray; it will wash easily with just a bit of scrubbing and a once over in the dish washer on high to disinfect it.
- You may also take a wet paint brush, load it with color and brush on more color randomly.
- Let the filters dry over night and then open these up in the morning to further dry out in the sunshine.
- Use just one filter to make the center of the cabbage. Wad together in your fist 8 or 9 cotton balls and place these in the center of the filter. Gather up the edges around a doubled chenille stem and twist the ends around the wire. Tape this in place and trim off the long length. This will be the center ball that all of the other leaves of the cabbage are attached to.
- I folded all of the magenta inter leaves in half and then again, to cut the edges into a ruffle. Then unfolded and separated these again to fluff them out.
- Apply glue to the bottom of the center stuffed leaf and attach the next magenta leaf to the center of this. Proceed through all of the leaves in order of their appearance squeezing a bit of glue to sandwich between each leaf.
- Now tuck the entire cabbage into a small bowl so that it will dry in a ball-like shape. Wait a day and then turn it upside-down to further dry.
- Separate and fluff the leaves when the glue has dried and your cabbage will then be finished for display.
Coffee filters in peaked shapes like teepees, have soaked up the puddle paints beneath them. Right, after drying overnight, flatten out the filters to dry some more in the sunshine. |
The center of the cabbage has one stuffed leaf with cotton balls. |
Cut the ruffled edges all at once by stacking the dry filters neatly, folding and then cutting them together. Fluff them out before stacking and pasting them together. |
Extended Learning Content:
- Cabbage poem, mini book, links and clip art
- Read about dolls born in a cabbage patch!
- Cabbages are part of the mustard family of vegetables...
Free Student Clip Art: Clip art may be printed from a home computer, a classroom computer or from a computer at a library and/or a local printing service provider. This may be done from multiple locations as needed because our education blog is online and available to the general public.
1. Root. - Branched. Fibrous. White. 2. Stem. - Thick. Green. 3. Leaves. - Wrinkled. Form a bud. Network of veins. 4. Flowers. - Yellow. Formed when the bud opens. Produce seeds. |
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