The Life Cycle of a Fern Blog Post

STEAM Activities: Ferns Across the Curriculum

Use these four fun and easy activities to extend your classroom study of The Life Cycle of a Fern.

Read-Aloud

Read aloud or share this linked video reading of The Bear and the Fern, written by Jay Miletsky and illustrated by Mary Manning. Then discuss student reactions to the book both as fiction and in contrast to the nonfiction Life Cycle books they’re reading.

Possible points to cover: the story’s theme or message, plants and animals used as fictional characters with human traits, ferns as houseplants, how the fern in the story “acted” similar to/different from ferns described in The Life Cycle of a Fern.

Writing Corner

Introduce the term botanist, explaining that a botanist is a plant scientist. Then have students write a short, creative adventure story in which they imagine themselves as a botanist studying ferns.

In their writing, students should use each of the following vocabulary words from The Life Cycle of a Fern at least once. Encourage them to refer to the book’s glossary and index as needed to help them review any of the words in context.

Alike and Different

Display the side-by-side cover images of The Life Cycle of a Fern and The Life Cycle of a Daisy. Have volunteers offer responses to each of the following:

• Share an example of how ferns and daisies are alike.
• Share an example of how ferns and daisies are different.



Next, display the life-cycle diagrams in each of the two books and discuss similarities and differences between the two distinct cycles.

Antarctica Research

Show students an online image of Antarctica with snow-covered land and/or bundled-up humans. Have them recall that ferns can be found on every continent except Antarctica. Then entertain any guesses about why ferns and other plants might not grow there. (It is too cold and harsh to support certain forms of life.) Invite interested students to research plant and animal life currently found in Antarctica and report findings in class.