Pre-K July 12, 2012 Gardens

Some people manage to grow gardens in Arizona.  I am not one of them.  I may as well read about them  =)

36 kids
3 siblings
14 adults


Books:

My Garden by Kevin Henkes. After helping her mother take care of their garden, a young girl imagines her dream garden.

She plants jellybeans and a jellybean bush grows.











I made this flannel tree (about 2 feet tall) for Caps for Sale but have used it for multiple flannel activities.  There are white pieces of Velcro on the foam board to stick flannel pieces on.  I used flannel jellybeans that are all white on one side and various colors on the other side.

All the jellybeans started out white and I tapped my head while saying, "Think, think, think, I wish this jellybean was pink," and it magically turned pink!  We decided to come up with other rhymes to turn the other jellybeans colors.

The book ended with fireflies so I pulled out my newest Folkmanis puppet Sparky, turned off the lights, and her glow and then did this fingerplay:

Two little fireflies landed on my hand
One named Sally
And one named Sam
Lights on, Sally
Lights on, Sam
Lights off, Sally
Lights off, Sam

 Up, Down, and Around by Katherine Ayres. A garden produces a variety of edible plants such as corn that grows up, onions that grow down, and tomato vines that twine all around.

We stood up every time we read the word "up", sat down when we read "down", and turned around when we read "around".  We moved A LOT.

Othe garden books I like:

Over in the Garden by Jennifer Ward

Growing Vegetable Soup by Loise Ehlert

Flower Garden by Eve Bunting

Nibbles: A Green Tale by Charlotte Middleton



Music:  "Tooty Ta" by Dr. Jean.  I have mixed feelings about this song, but do it every now and again because lots of kids like it.

Letter of the Day:  Ff for fox, firefly, fish, and frog

Vegetable Game: 

Can you think of any Red vegetables? Green? Yellow? Orange?  This game gets a little crazy because the kids all start shouting veggies at me and I really can't hear at one point.  There's probably a better way to to it.....
They always think of veggies I don't have so I have to make more.  Cucumber, zucchini, cabbage, spinach, radish.