Lesson video

Okay, so before we do our star words, you're going to need to get your resources ready if you've not done so.

You need pencil and a pen.

You need a ruler, something to write with.

And if you've got them, some colouring pencils.

Again, pause the video and go and get your resources now.

Okay, so let's get going with our star words today.

So I've got Lenny here, and he's helping me listen to him.

Yeah? No way.

Lenny has just told me that at the end of this lesson, we're going to go and look at the farm together and show you around some of the plants that we've got.

Okay, let's get started with our lesson so that we can go to the farm after this.

Okay, so our first star word of the day is features.

My turn, your turn, features, features.

Now a feature is something that is like something.

So a feature is something that you can see or something that it has.

So for instance, a feature of me is I have blonde hair.

That is a feature.

Another feature is that I have two eyes.

That is a feature.

Can you tell me a feature about yourself? You're a big smiley sausage.

I'm only joking team.

So my feature, feature.

Feature is something you can see or something that it has.

What is a feature? Well done.

Okay, next star word.

Environments.

Your turn.

Now, this is very similar to conditions, our star word last week, but because our environments have different conditions, I wanted to keep the action quite similar.

So, and in fact, I'm going to do two hands.

Environments.

Your turn.

Environments.

Your turn, well done.

Now the environment is where you are.

Your environment is where you are.

Next word is survive.

Your turn, survive.

Your turn.

Survive is when you stay alive.

Survive is when you stay alive, well done.

So survive.

The action is survive with your hands like that.

Are you ready? Survive, your turn.

Well done everybody.

Next star word is conditions.

Your turn.

Conditions.

Your turn, well done.

So environments was two hands, conditions is one hand.

Now the conditions are what the environment is like.

Conditions are what the environment is, well done.

If I'm in a very cold environment, or I might be in a very, a very hot environment.

I wonder what your environment is like at home.

Can you tell your screen what your environment is like at the moment? It's very sunny where you are? How lovely.

I wonder if that also means it's hot, or maybe you've got the doors and the windows closed.

I wonder if it's very cold where you are, and maybe you have a jumper on so that you can adapt to your environment.

Okay, let's do our next star word.

Oh, adapt.

Now, adapt, what I'm going to do for adapt, so I'm going to pretend I'm putting on a hat.

So can we adapt? Because if it's very cold, I might want to put a hat on.

Let's my turn, your turn.

Adapt, your turn.

Adapt, your turn.

Well done everybody.

So remember, adapt means, change, so you need to change, or you adapt.

And the last word is adaptations.

Your turn.

Adaptations, your turn.

Well done.

I wonder, the word adaptations looks very similar to one of our other star words.

Can you tell your screen which one that is? Well done, it's very similar to adapt.

So when we adapt, and we make lots of, if we adapt lots of times, then we're making lots of the plural, which we would call adaptations.

So adaptations are when you adapt lots of times.

Adaptations are when you adapt lots of times, well done.

So if anything, you can put on lots of different hats depending on what adaptations you need.

You might also want a jumper.

You might also want a scarf, or you might want a big, big fluffy coat.

And that will be lots of different adaptations.

Okay, so let's get started.

First of all, we're going to look at what plants do to adapt in hot conditions.

Then we'll look at cold conditions, then other adaptations that they make, and then we'll do our learning review.

And then we'll go the farm , how exciting.

Okay, so on the screen, you can see a cactus.

Now, this cactus is in a desert, and in the desert, it is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very hot.

And so that means that the cactus has to survive in very hot conditions.

Well done for your star word there.

Now this cactus can only survive by making adaptations to itself.

For instance, you can see that it's very, very tall and thick.

So the stem is very thick.

I wonder what you think it's holding in its stem that's very thick.

You got it right, it's holding water.

And it's very thick so that it can hold lots of water.

What animal do you know that holds water so that it can survive in hot countries? What animal, can you tell your screen? A camel, well done.

A camel has humps, which are nice and thick so that it can hold water, and it's the same as a cactus.

The thick stem holds lots of water.

Now, if you were able to go up to the cactus and look very closely and you might even be able to touch it, oh, without pricking your finger, on the outside of the stem, it would feel very waxy.

Now, waxy or wax is like a candle wax.

And it's a naturally produced material.

And in plants, sometimes they have waxy leaves or stems in this case, so that it's like a seal.

You know when you get in the shower or the bath, and you put the water in it, the water stays in it, doesn't it, it doesn't flow all around your house.

It stays in your bath or your shower, because it is sealed.

So in this case, the wax seals the plant so that the water stays in.

What were those things that we looked at last week that let water through the leaves? Well done the stomata.

So the wax covers the stomata so that it only lets a tiny bit of water out so that it can really hold onto its water.

You'll also notice that it doesn't have any leaves.

That's also to help the water stay in the plant.

If you looked underground, and you got to shovelling, you started digging, you would also see that there are long roots underneath, and they stay very close to the surface of the earth.

And that's because when it rains, which it doesn't do very often, the roots want to get as much rainwater as possible.

So it stays very, very close to the surface so that when it rains, it can guzzle up all of that juicy water and then hold it in its stem.

Okay, so now let's have a look.

We're going to do our comprehension now that we've had a look at the cactus.

You're going to read with me out loud to your screen.

Are you ready? One, two, three.

Plant adaptations are features that plants have that help them to thrive in a particular environment.

For example, some plants have particular features that may help them to survive, oh, there's our star word, survive.

Survive means what team? Stay alive, well done.

Survive in very hot conditions.

And some plants may have features which enable them to survive very well in very cold conditions.

Okay.

So let's keep reading.

One, two, three.

Plants in hot conditions will find it very difficult to collect water and have to avoid losing water.

They will have features to help them survive.

Well done team.

Well done putting your hands on your head when you heard a star word.

So in my book, I've drawn myself a cactus.

I was quite pleased with this drawing of this cactus, if you must know team.

I wonder, I would like you to now draw a cactus in your book just like mine.

I want it to have a nice thick stem.

It can have little spikes on it.

And then your roots need to stay near the surface.

Pause the video and draw your cactus now.

Well done.

I hope you've added a sun in there too to show you that it's the hot conditions.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to read some features, and I want you to add the labels onto your diagram.

Once we've done that, I'll show you the answers, and you can check if you were right.

So if I say thick stem, can you draw a line to your stem of your cactus and draw a line out to show me where the thick stem is? Pause the video and do that now.

Okay.

And now I want you to draw a label on the cactus that shows that there are no leaves.

So can you write no leaves somewhere on your cactus? Well done.

Pause the video if you need more time.

The next label you're going to add is waxy coating.

Can you have a go at labelling your diagram where the waxy coating is? Where was it? Well done.

And lastly, the one I'm going to ask you to add is long, shallow roots.

Can you have a go? Even if you're not sure about the spelling, long, shallow roots, where are they on your diagram? Add them on now.

Well done.

Pause the video if you need more time, Let's see if you were right.

I'm going to show you my annotated cactus.

So you can see that attached to the main part of the cactus is the waxy coating.

So that would be all over the cactus.

There are no leaves where you might normally find them on a tree.

There is a thick stem, so that's a main part of the cactus in the middle.

And then underneath of course are our long shallow roots.

If you need to edit your answers there or check your spellings, please pause the video now and edit your work.

Well done.

Now that we've had a look at plants in hot conditions, we're going to look at plants that survive and adapt in cold conditions.

Oh, it's very chilly in here.

I wonder what a plant would have to do in order to adapt to a cold condition.

Let's have a read.

One, two, three.

Plants that are in very cold conditions will need to stay alive in freezing temperatures and harsh conditions.

When we say harsh, we mean that it's not very nice.

So it's quite difficult to survive in these very extreme conditions when it's freezing cold all the time.

Because as we know, plants really like sunshine and warm so that they can grow, and we've looked at that with seeds and with plants.

So let's read this bottom sentence.

They will have features to help them survive.

So have a look at my drawing of an Arctic poppy.

Now this is an Arctic poppy, and the Arctic is a very cold place, and there's lots and lots of snow that falls.

And it's nearly always freezing.

Now you can see that there are some flowers on the Arctic poppy.

Now these flowers open very quickly, and they follow the sunshine, so that when it's sunny, the flowers follow the sun so they can maximise, they can get the most sunlight as they can when the sun is out.

You can also see that the main shrub of the plant is very low down.

It's not a nice tall plant like we've looked at with the cactus.

So it's very close to the soil, and that's because the soil is very warm.

And so the plant can keep warm by staying close to the soil.

You'll also notice that the roots look quite similar to the ones in my cactus.

They are also very shallow.

So it means that they're very close to the surface.

And that is because of the same reason as the cactus.

So when it rains in cold conditions, they want to maximise, they want to get the most out of the water when it rains.

So they want to have nice shallow roots that are close to the surface.

The other similarity to a cactus is that they will also have a waxy layer around their plant, and like the cactus, it's so the water stays inside the plant, and it doesn't lose lots of water.

Oh, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling very, very cold.

Okay, so to help you with this one, I'm going to read out the features that I want you to label very similar to my cactus.

So listening very carefully and use what you learned on your cactus to help you.

Can you add the label, waxy layer? pause the video and add yours in now.

Can you now add the label shallow roots? Pause the video and add yours now.

Can you now add short plant? Pause the video and add that in now.

And the last label, listen carefully, is flowers that follow the sun, flowers that follow the sun.

Pause the video and add that in now.

Let's see, I wonder, let's see if we can change my adaptations and see if we can get some answers.

So let's rub our hands together, and when I say go, we're going to blow on our screen and see if our adaptations were correct and see if any of my adaptations might change.

Are you ready? Rubbing hands together.

One, two, three, go.

Wow, oh my goodness me.

I'm back to my normal adaptations for my nice warm classroom.

And we made our adaptation labels appear on an Arctic poppy.

So pause the video and see if your labels were correct and double check your spelling, particularly for the word waxy and for the word shallow.

Pause the video and check your work now.

Well done everyone.

Just before we move on, I just want to point something out that I mentioned just a minute ago.

There were some things that I said that were similar adaptations between the cactus and the poppy.

In this instance, we had the waxy layer that was the same, and shallow roots that were also the same.

Those two adaptations were common between the cactus and the Arctic poppy.

So they are useful adaptations to survive in hot temperatures and in cold temperatures.

Bear that one in mind when we go to our next activity.

What we're now going to do is you are going to write down an answer to, I've got six statements for you.

And you can see at the top of the screen, hot, cold, or both.

You need to decide whether this adaptation is for plants in hot cold conditions, cold conditions, or both conditions are benefiting from this adaptation.

So for instance, number one says, let's read it together.

One, two, three.

Plants will stay short.

Is that for hot conditions, cold conditions, or both? Use your drawings to help you and write down your answer now.

Well done.

Pause the video if you need more time.

The next one says, let's read it together.

Large swollen stems. Hot, cold, or both? Pause the video, and write your answer now.

Number three, let's read it together.

Waxy coating.

Is that hot, cold, or both? Pause the video, and write your answer now.

Number four, read it together.

Flowers follow the sun.

Is that hot, cold, or both? Pause the video, and write your answer now.

Let's read this one together.

Roots remain shallow.

Hot, cold, or both? Pause the video, and write your answer now.

And last one, number six.

Let's read together.

Grow very slowly over a long time.

Now this one I've not mentioned.

I wonder if you could have a think.

Hot and cold conditions are both very harsh conditions, and it makes it very difficult to grow.

So what do you think? Do you think plants grow slowly over a long time in hot conditions, cold conditions, or both conditions? Pause the video and write your answer now.

Okay.

If you need more time or need to go back and list some of those, please do that now, because I'm about to show you the answers, and you don't want to see them if you've not done your work yet.

Okay, so let's have a drum roll and see if you are correct.

So one was cold, two was hot, three was both, four was cold, five was both, and six was both.

I'm just going to recap those.

So plants stay short in cold conditions.

Can you tell your screen why? Well done, because the ground is warm, so they want to stay nice and close to the warm soil.

Large swollen stems, that was in hot conditions.

Can you tell your screen why? Well done, because they want to keep the water in as they, and they want to keep in as much water as they can hold, a bit like which animal? A bit like a camel, well done.

Number three was both.

Can you tell your screen why they have a waxy coating? Well done, because it holds in the water, and it keeps it nice and water tight, just like in a bath or a shower so that the water doesn't spill everywhere.

Flowers follow the sun was in cold conditions, but why do they follow the sun? Can you tell your screen? Well done, they follow the sun to what was that word max? Maximise the sunlight so they can grow, well done.

Roots remain shallow to the surface.

That was for both of our hot and cold conditions.

But why? Can you tell your screen? Well done.

It's because when there's rainfall, they want to get as much water as quickly as they can.

So they stay near the surface to collect all that juicy, juicy rain.

And number six, I wonder what you wrote for this one.

This one is both as we looked at with our answers, and that's because in harsh conditions, it makes it more difficult to grow.

So if you're trying to survive in a cold condition, you grow very slowly.

And some plants in cold conditions only grow as much as your fingernail would grow in one week.

So if your fingernail grows, it grows quite quickly, and over a week, it might grow maybe a couple of millimetres if that.

That's how much some cold condition plants grow in a whole year.

So you can see that it's very, very slow.

Okay, now that we've looked at adaptions in hot conditions and cold conditions, let's have a look at some other adaptations.

Let's read together from the top, plant adaptations.

One, two, three.

There are a number of other reasons why plants may need to adapt to survive.

Sometimes plants want to avoid being eaten by animals, or they may want animals to eat their fruits or to attract insects to help pollination.

Oh, so this is all of the other ways that plants need to adapt so that they can help their seeds disperse.

Can you name the flower that's on the screen? Well done, that is a rose.

And you can see on the stem of the rose, there are some things that do not look very kind.

They are spiky, and the thorns on a rose prevent animals from eating or damaging the flower so that the flower can still produce seeds, and it can be pollinated by insects.

Oh, I wonder what tree this is.

Can you tell your screen? What tree produces beautiful blossom like that? Excuse me, well done, that is a cherry tree.

Now you can see in the beautiful, you can see the beautiful pollen that cherry trees have delicious fruits on them.

And when they're not in flower, when they are, when they have their fruits on their leaves, they are very, very attractive to animals, particularly, I wonder what kind of birds particularly like eating cherries high in trees.

Well done, yes, birds.

And they go up and they eat the cherry, and then what's inside that cherry? What's this action for? A seed, well done.

So by having delicious fruits and very beautiful pollen, they can attract animals to come and help them pollinate and also to disperse their seeds by eating their fruit.

So this is what I mentioned just before.

This is a very small daisy plant, daisy flower, and you can see a wasp.

You can see that the daisy is very brightly coloured.

So the bright colours attract the insects.

And that makes it very, very beautiful, which means that they fly to them, and they can spot them easily so that they can go over and help with the flowers pollination.

Okay, it's now time for your task.

You've done really, really well team.

And you've done a lot of listening today.

I want you now to think about the rainforest.

What do you already know about the rainforest? Can you tell me three things that you already know about the rainforest? And if you're not sure, you can use the picture on the screen to help you.

Can you tell me three things by pausing your video now? Well done.

Well done having a go everybody.

I wonder if you said that you know that the rainforest is very hot.

I wonder if you also know that the rain forest can be very dense.

Now dense means that there is lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of plants, and lots of trees all growing in a very small space.

So like you can see in the picture, there are very, very tall trees, and there are lots of small shrubs, and there are lots of medium-sized trees as well.

So it's very dense.

You can also see in the picture that it's a little bit misty or almost foggy.

Now that shows me that it's very humid.

And we learned about humidity in our previous lesson.

What does humid mean? Can you tell your screen now? Well done, humid means there's lots of water droplets in the air, which makes it even harder for plants to survive.

So now that we've had a little recap of the rainforest, and we know that it's hot, we know that it's dense, and we know that it's humid, I'm going to set you a challenge.

Your challenge today is to design and draw your own plant and label the adaptations so that it can survive in the rainforest.

So if you were going to design a plant to live in the rainforest, how would you make sure that it can get sunlight? How can you make sure that it can get water when there's lots of other plants around? And how can you make sure that it can release water even though it's very humid? So I wonder what you're going to come up with.

I want you to label your plant, just like we did with the cactus and the Arctic poppy.

I can't wait to see what kind of plants you come up with.

You can draw one you already know about, or you can make up one completely from your own imagination.

Okay, so pause the video, and complete your task now.

Well done everyone.

I can't wait to see your work.

If you want to, you can ask your adult to help you share it on Twitter.

Okay, now just before we go to our learning review, let's go and have a look at some plants on our farm.

Do you think we're ready Lenny? Lenny thinks we're ready.

Let's go and have a look at the farm.

Okay, welcome to our farm.

over here, we have our sensory garden.

You can see some beautiful windmills here.

And the plants we've got here is, we've got some rosemary, and these are herbs, and these smell really nice.

Can you smell it? And then we've got some thyme over there.

And this one is santolina, which is like a lemony citrus fizz.

I wonder, look at those leaves.

How interesting.

Okay, so I'm going to take you to the farm, and we're going to have a look at some flowers on the farm.

So let's go and take a look.

Welcome to our farm.

This is our play area, and we've got some sinks over there that we like to play with water.

And then we like to have some wood.

And then over here, can you hear, we've got some chickens.

I'm going to show you the chickens.

Okay.

So here are flowerbeds.

This is where we grow vegetables.

So can you tell me what vegetable that is? Well done, it's lettuce.

Do you like lettuce? I love lettuce.

And here we've got some beans, and these plants are funny, 'cause look, they're all curly.

They're interesting, aren't they? Oh, wow, we have so many different plants.

Okay, I'm going to take you over here, look at some flowers.

See if you can see some stamen and some anthers.

Okay, have a look at these ones.

Oh, they're a very beautiful colour.

So when they're very attractive to animals and insects, they get pollinated.

That's good, isn't it? And then what have we got over here? Interesting, some pink ones.

Now I can't quite see, but you can see some of them are open in the sunshine, wow.

Okay, I'm going to take you, keep going.

Got lots of weeds at the moment, but that's okay.

What else can we look at? Oh, this is a very tidy bed.

Oh, this looks like, that looks like a very small rhubarb.

Do you like rhubarb? So these have big leaves.

I wonder if you can remember, what do you have underneath the leaf so that it expels water? Can you tell your screen? Yeah, you have stomata.

Then these are some yellow flowers.

I think that's a weed.

And then, have a look over here.

Can you hear the chickens? I'll show you them in a second.

If you have a look over here, we've got some very small plants that are growing, so you can see the leaves are facing towards the sun.

You've got their stem, and they'll gradually become bigger and bigger.

They look like small, the beaners, and then we've got some sweet peppers.

These aren't growing just yet.

These are very small plants growing nice and big and strong.

You know all about plants now.

I'm sure you could tell me lots of things about these plants.

And then finally, I'm just going to show you the chickens.