Gardening

Following April vacation, our class celebrated Spring with a study of gardening.  We began our discussion of gardens by discussing what might grow in a garden and what gardens we have at our homes.  We then read the book My Garden by Kevin Henkes.  In this story, a little girl is planting a garden with her mother and imagines what she would plant if she could grow anything (shells, jelly beans).  The students then drew their own gardens illustrating what they would choose to plant.  Some examples included lollipops, cotton candy and flowers.

Next, we read several fiction books about gardens such as Lola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinn, Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert and Zinnia's Flower Garden by Monica Wellington.  We also discussed flower parts as well as what flowers need to grow; soil, sun and water.  I introduced the students to diagrams and labeling as we labeled flower parts.  The children then created their own flower out of different shapes and labeled each part.

To provide a hands-on experience with flowers and their parts we planted grass seeds and sunflower seeds.  Once the grass seeds grew, the children "mowed" their lawn by cutting the grass with scissors.  We also did an experiment with white carnation flowers.  We put the flowers into colored water and waited a few days to see what would happen.  After the weekend, we noticed that the white flowers had turned the color of the water demonstrating how flowers "drink" water through their stem like a straw and that the water spreads throughout the flower. 

In addition to flower gardens, we discussed vegetable gardens.  We read The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin and Oliver's Vegetables by Vivian French.  We discussed what vegetables the students like to eat and also what foods are made from different vegetables.

Finally, our discussion of gardens led us to the importance of worms.  After reading the book, Wonderful Worms by Linda Glaser, the children were able to observe and handle real worms.  We looked for the head, the lines on its body and each worm's middle white band.  Then the children observed how the worm moved.  We tested how the worms responded to water.  It was great fun and all of the children bravely explored these creatures.

Integrated within our theme of gardening, the students practiced counting, number recognition, matching upper and lowercase letters, writing letters, syllables, identifying shapes in our environment, and following multi-step directions.

During this unit, we had a flower shop in the dramatic play center.  The children took turns pretending to be a florist, delivery person, cashier and customer.  Students were able to create bouquets of flowers for their customers.  Children took orders, recorded the orders on a checklist and exchanged pretend money.  They also sorted flowers by color and practiced writing as they wrote cards to accompany their bouquets.  

In the sensory table the children practiced planting flowers in pots using gardening gloves, trowels and rubber gloves.

At the art center students painted gardens using forks and water bottles.