A Gardener’s Alphabet, by Mary Azarain

So many new words to learn about the garden all done with beautiful detailed pictures.

Materials

1-10 plastic cups, labeled with the numbers 1-2-3-etc.
Many plastic or silk flowers (if you have just the heads, use pipe cleaners for stems.)
Old play dough
Small basket and several dish towels
Sheet of poster board or large piece of paper
1-2 potted plants (since you will be pulling these out of the pot, you do not need a fancy plant. I have stuffed garden weeds into a cup as a potted plant to do this project)

Vocabulary

Arbor (a little nook or gazebo)
Bulbs (some plants grow from seeds, and some plants grow from bulbs)
Compost (food scraps that you let deteriorate to make dirt for your garden)
Greenhouse (a house made out of glass so you can grow things in the cold weather)
Manure (animal poop that you can put in your compost)
Nibble (to take little bites or tastes)
Topiary (to make fancy shapes out of bushes)
Weed (to take out all the plants you do not want in the garden)
Xeriscape (a garden that needs hardly any watering at all!)

Introducing the Story

Talk to the children about their gardening experiences. Do they have a garden at home? What do they grow, vegetables or flowers? Do you have a garden at school? How do the children help maintain it? Tell the children that today’s book is about words that tell about a garden. Ask the children if they can think of any words that tell about a garden and write them on a large piece of paper (dirt, zucchini, smells good, sprinkler, seeds). Introduce the book and as you go through the pages, help define what each word is.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Reading the Story

As you read each page, introduce the letter it represents, its letter sound and point to it at the beginning of each word. Take your time reading the story allowing the children to talk about what they see on the page and experiences that come from looking at the pictures.

Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; identifies at least 10 letters of the alphabet, especially those in their own name. Knows that letters of the alphabet are a special category of visual graphics that can be individually named.

After Reading the Story

Open the book up randomly to a page, Say the letter name and the word that corresponds with it; M-manure. Ask the children if they can think of any other words that start with the letter sound /M/ for manure? Do several pages. This could also be used as a transition activity. Let the child open the book, see if they can name the first letter of the word, say the word and think of another that begins with that letter sound.

Music and Movement

Sing or chant while doing motions that go along;

Dig a little hole and put the seed in.

Cover it with dirt and let the sun shine in.

Add a little water, to keep it fed,

Soon a little plant will show its head.

Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances.

Discovery

Bring in several real plants in pots. Ask the children if they can name the parts of the plant (leaves, petals, stem, flower). If not, help them to name. Count the leaves, smell the flower, etc.). Pull the plant out of the soil and show the children the roots of the plant. Give them pieces of paper and encourage them to draw the plant. You can label their plant parts with them when they are finished drawing.

Science/Scientific Skills; develops growing abilities to collect, describe, and record information through a variety of means, including discussion, drawings, maps, and charts.

Blocks

Ahead of time, trace around blocks onto a piece of poster board or large paper. Lay this out in the center and challenge the children to find the correct blocks to lie over the traced shapes. When we did our garden unit, we made flower type shapes using the blocks and traced them onto the poster board.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; begins to be able to determine whether or not two shapes are the same size and shape.

Art

Look on the Internet for flower collage projects to do with preschoolers. There are many different and lovely ideas. Pick one and let the children collage flowers today.

Creative Arts/Art; develops growing abilities to plan, work independently, and demonstrate care and persistence in a variety of art projects.

Sand and Water

Bring the play fruits and vegetables from the dramatic center today and let the children wash them in the water table. As they wash them, they can dry them with a dishtowel and place in a small basket. Washing our harvest so we can eat it, yummy. Can the children name the various vegetables? Remind them that by washing the vegetables, you are removing any dirt and manure that still might be on them. This is a healthy habit.

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; builds awareness and ability to follow basic health and safety rules such as fire safety, traffic and pedestrian safety, and responding appropriately to potentially harmful objects, substances, and activities.

Library and Writing

Put out seed catalogs for the children look at. For your oldest children, encourage them to write the names of the flowers or foods that they would like to grow. Show them where to find the name of the plant on the page of the catalog.

Literacy/Early Writing; progresses from scribbles, shapes or pictures to represent ideas, to using letter-like symbols, to copying or writing familiar words such as their own name.

Dramatic Play

If you have extra silk flower heads today, let the children arrange them into a plastic vase (an old mayonnaise jar works well) and put them onto the dramatic table.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; participates in a variety of dramatic play activities that become more extended and complex.

Math and Manipulaties

Ahead of time label plastic cups 1-10 depending upon the age of your children and the numbers that you are working on. In each cup put a ball of play dough that fills the bottom ½ of the cup. Put out the silk/plastic flowers on the table. Encourage the children to add the proper number of flowers to each cup (#3=three silk flowers)

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increased abilities to combine, separate, and name “how many” concrete objects.

Outdoor Play

Plant a garden or work in your classroom garden with the children. If you do not have a school garden, pretend to plant a garden in the sandbox. Use shovels to make rows and acorns, rocks, or pinecones to be the ‘seeds’.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Bring out scissors and let the children cut the grass.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Transitions

Explain to the children that in the garden one can find many colors. Dismiss the children to the next activity by colors that they are wearing. If they are proficient in colors, use patterns in tier clothing (stripes, polka dots, words, numbers, plaid, etc.).

Resources

Dear Parents, Today we read an alphabet book about gardening. Play a game with your child using the letters in their name. Write the letters, not in the correct order, and ask them if they can name the letters. If not tell them the letter name and also the letter sound. Then take your finger and point to the letters in the correct order of your child’s name and slowly say their name saying each letter and then each syllable.

Beautiful Blackbird, by Ashley Bryan

All the birds want to be beautiful like black bird who generously shares his color with them.

Materials

Roll of crepe paper
A whisk, hand eggbeater, slotted spoon, different tools to make bubbles in water.
Several large stiff feathers to use as paint brushes

Vocabulary

Arcs (curves and semicircles)
Festival (party or celebration)
Mirrored (reflected)
Beautiful (how lovely someone or something is)

Introducing the Story

Play a color game such as; If you are wearing _____clap your hands, if you are wearing ________green stomp your feet.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions.

Or have snips of paper in several colors (one for each child). Give each child a snip of paper and the child must go and find an object in the room that color. Make sure whatever game you play that black is included.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; shows growth in matching, sorting, putting in a series, and regrouping objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape, or size.

Reading the Story

Read this book ahead of time so that you have the rhythm of the story as you read. When you get to the page where Blackbird shares his color, tell the children that he is being a beautiful friend by sharing all his color.

Language development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.

After Reading the Story

Ask the children what it is that all the birds wanted from black bird? (His color black). Why do you think they wanted some black of their own? (They thought it was beautiful). Do you think it was fair that Black Bird shared some of his with all the other birds? (Yes, he was being a good friend). Ask the children if they know what beautiful means? Let them give their thoughts (Beautiful is really pretty like a shiny necklace. Beautiful is my stuffed doggie. My Mommy says my smile is beautiful.). Then tell the children that every person in the whole wide world has something that is beautiful about them. Sometimes it is on the outside like lovely curls and sometimes it is on the inside like when someone always shares and is kind. Let the children comment upon this idea. If they do not, you can tell one thing beautiful about all the children in the group. (Roger has a beautiful smile and Alison is beautiful because she is so gentle with her baby sister and other little children.). Make sure to include both inward and outward beauty for everyone throughout the day. (Sean, that is beautiful how you mixed those colors on your painting, you are an artist. Paula, that was so thoughtful and beautiful for you to share your book with Ryan).

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and non-fiction books and poetry.

Music and Movement

Take the words to the dance in the book and turn it into a barnyard type call and dance.

Beak to beak, peck, peck, peck

Spread your wings, stretch your neck.

Tip tap toe to the left, spin around

Toe tap tip to the right, stroke the ground.

Wings flip-flapping as you glide,

Forward and backward in a snow claws slide.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions. AND Creative Arts/Movement; shows growth in moving in time to different patterns of beat and rhythm in music.

Sing Two Little Blackbirds

Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill,

(Children hold up 1 finger on each hand)

One named Jack and one named Jill.

(Wiggle left finger, wiggle right finger)

Fly away Jack, fly away Jill

( Put 1 finger behind back, then the other)

Come back Jack, come back Jill.

(Bring 1 finger forward, then the other)

Next add 2 fingers to each hand and count. Sing about 4 blackbird, then 6 blackbirds, 8, and then 10

Mathematics/Numbers & Operations; develops increased abilities to combine and name “how many” concrete objects.

Discovery

Fill 5 plastic cups with a small amount of paint; red, blue, yellow, white, and brown. Put out white paper and brushes. Challenge the children to mix colors to make new colors. Can they make black? Pink? Green? Purple? What happens when you add more white to your color?

Science/Scientific Skills; begins to participate in simple investigations to test observations, discuss and draw conclusions, and form generalizations.

Blocks

Challenge the children to build a nest and then pretend to be birds.

Approaches to Learning/ Reasoning & Problem-Solving; develops increasing ability to find more that one solution to a question, task, or problem.

Art

Put out black paint and feathers for brushes at the easel today. You can cut out simple bird shapes from colored construction paper.

Creative Arts/Art; gains ability to use different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expressions and representation.

Sand and Water

In the story, blackbird stirred his brew in the medicine gourd. Put water into the table today with things to stir; a whisk, a hand mixer, a slotted spoon. Let the children add soap to stir around and make bubbles.

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Control; demonstrates increasing capacity to follow rules and routines and use materials purposefully, safely, and respectfully.

Library and Writing

Tell the children that in the story today, blackbird said color on the outside is not what’s on the inside. You don’t act like me. You don’t eat like me. You don’t move and groove your feet like me. And in our class, you don’t have the same name as me. Give the children paper and pencils/markers to practice writing their names. Put out name tags so the children can see their name as they copy the letters. For older children, encourage them to also copy the name of their friends.

Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; identifies at least 10 letters of the alphabet, especially those in their own name. Literacy/Early Writing; progresses from using scribbles, shapes, or pictures to represent ideas, to using letter-like symbols, to copying or writing familiar words such as their name.

Dramatic Play

In the story, the birds gathered for a festival. Put out crepe paper and masking tape so the children can begin to decorate for a festival in the dramatic center.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; participates in a variety of dramatic play activities to become more extended and complex.

Math and Manipulatives

Make a ‘Which is our favorite color’ chart and then survey the children to see which is their favorite color. After all the children have been surveyed, you can use your chart to see which color was most favored in your classroom, which color was nobody’s favorite, count how many marks each color has. Write the number on the chart.

Mathematics/Patterns & Operations; begins to make comparisons between several objects based on a single attribute. AND Mathematics/Numbers & Operations; begins to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects.

Outdoor Play

Pretend to be birds and fly about the play yard. Can the children fly fast? Slow? Fly very low to the ground? On their tiptoes? Use the edge of the sandbox to perch as though on a branch, pretend to fly down and eat insects and gather together in a nest for the night.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Transitions

Send the children off to the next activity by colors. If you are wearing black, line up. If you are wearing green, line up, etc..

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; understands an increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.

Resources

Dear Parents, today we read a story about how birds got black markings on their bodies. Take your child for a black walk about your house or property. How many black items can they find?

Big Red Barn, by Margaret Wise Brown

What do farm animals do all day? This book is a nice introduction to farm animals and the barn.

Materials

Small amount of hay or grass.
Large box to make a barn, or a sheet to cover the table to make a barn,
Several jars of bubbles and bubble wands (bubble wands can be made by bending pipe cleaners)

Vocabulary

Weather Vane (A device that sits on top of a barn and points the way the wind is blowing)
Tomcat (a big Daddy cat)

Before Reading the Story

Ask the children to name all the farm animals that they can think of. Write all the answers on a large piece of paper.

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; begins to express and understand concepts and language of geography in the contexts of the classroom, home, and community. AND Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem-Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Reading the Story

Show the children the weather vane and explain that it tells which way the wind is blowing. When you get to the page that talks of the sheep and the goat making noises in their throat, ask the children if they know what kind of noise they make.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

After Reading the Story

Tell the children that you are going to guess farm animals. Say “I see a /g/ pause /oat/. That makes a goat! Now I see a /sh/ pause /eep/. That makes a _____. See if the children can make a farm animal by saying the first letter sound and then adding the rest of the letter sounds. Ask the children if they can recall the animal that was up during the night.

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; shows growing awareness of beginning and ending sounds of words.

Discovery

In the story the animals were out and about during the day. Which was the only animal that was up in the night? Discuss with the children what they do during the day and the night. Make a Venn diagram that shows the differences and similarities of the day and the night.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurements; begins to make comparisons between several objects based on a single attribute. Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; grows in eagerness to learn about and discuss a growing range of topics, ideas, and tasks.

Music and Movement

Teach the children the Baby Animal Song, to the tune of My Eyes are Little Windows

I had a cute cabalito/pony

My Dad he gave to me,

But now he is a caballo/horse

He grew so big you see.

I had a cute cerditto/piglet

My Dad he gave to me,

But now he is a cerdo/pig

He grew so big you see.

Careritto/lamb-cernero/sheep

Pantorrilla/calf-pantorro/cow

Pollita/chick-pollo/chicken

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; uses an increasingly complex and varied spoken vocabulary.

Blocks

Ask the children to build a barn and add any farm animals you have.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; shows increasing abilities to use compromise and discussion in working, playing, and resolving conflicts with peers.

Art

Use red finger paint today. Show the children how to make a barn in the paint(using a square and a triangle for the basic structure). Encourage the children try to make farm animals also.

Creative Arts/Art; progresses in abilities to create drawings, paintings, models, and other art creations that are more detailed, creative, or realistic.

Library and Writing

Make a copy of the animal picture cards and cover with contact paper. Add a small piece of Velcro and the children can use these on the flannel board to make a farm scene. Encourage them to tell a story as they play.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

Sand and Water

Add hay to the table today and let the children scoop it into buckets. If you do not have hay, use grass. Give the children shovels, tongs, and measuring cups to experiment picking up the hay/grass and putting it into a bucket.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Dramatic Play

Use a sheet to cover the dramatic table to make a ‘barn’. Make sure you can easily observe inside the barn. Or if you have room, use a box. You could take it outside and let the children paint it red the day before.

Creative Arts/Drama; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Math and Manipulatives

Make several copies of the barn picture and color them different colors. The children can then use small cubes, chain links, etc to match the color object onto the correct color barn.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; shows growth in matching, sorting, putting in a series, and regrouping objects according to one or two attributes such as color, shape,or size.

Outdoor play

Ask the children if they remember what the weathervane is used for. Then ask them if they can think of another way to tell which way the wind is blowing. Bring out the bubbles and let the children blow bubbles into the wind and away from the wind, what happens?

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Transitions

Dismiss the children by asking does this animal live on a farm? Name animals that do and do not live on a farm. The children respond yes or no. You can also have the children make the animal sound.(growl-no, meow-yes).

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Dear Parents, today we read a story about animals who live on the farm. You can play a simple game called, ‘does it or does it not live on a farm’. Then begin naming animals and see if your child can recall if it lives on a farm or not. Let your child have a turn asking you about some animals.

Accompanying Book, Farm Animals, by Wade Cooper