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.

Planting a Rainbow, by Lois Ehlert

This book has bright lively pictures and a simple planting information to help children understand the world of gardening.

Materials

Seed catalogs of any kind
Silk flowers. If you do not have stems, attach pipe cleaners
Small paper plates, one per child
Many triangles cut in rainbow colors. They will be the pedals of the flowers
Long strips of construction paper about ½ inch wide
Large sheet of paper where you have drawn a simple rainbow: using the colors in your color strips.
On a large piece of paper draw a red circle, an orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple circle.

Vocabulary

Catalog-a directory magazine
Soil-dirt
Seedlings-baby plants
Sow-to plant
Petals-a part of the flower on a plant.

Introducing the Story

Show the children the front and back covers of the book. Tell the children that the title is called, Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert. Ask the children what they think the author meant by planting a rainbow? Ask the children if they have ever helped to plant flowers before? What do they think flowers need to grow? (Dirt, water, and sunshine).

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, stop occasionally on pages and ask the children to name some of the colors that they see. On others, point to a color and name and ask the children if they are wearing that color.

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

After Reading the Story

Put the sheet of paper on the wall with the colored circles. Ask the children which color flower they would be if they were a flower. Write their name inside the circle. Count how many of each color flower you would have in your garden. Act out the poem, Dig a Little Hole.

Literacy/Print Awareness & Concepts; develops growing understanding of the different functions of forms of print such as signs, letters, newsletters, lists, messages, and menus. AND Mathematics/Number & Operations; demonstrates increasing interest and awareness if numbers and counting as a means for solving problems and determining quantity.

Music and Movement

Dig a Little Hole

Dig a little hole and put the seed in. Act out digging a hole with your hands.

Cover it with dirt and let the sun shine in. Pretend to cover the hole and lift arms over head.

Add a little water and keep it fed Wiggle fingers like rain

Pretty soon a little plant will show it’s head. Use one arm to grow up towards sky.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes. AND Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances.

Discovery

At the easel put out red, yellow, and blue paint and encourage the children to mix the colors as they paint. What colors did you make?

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.

If you have extra monies to spend, there is a fun science experience using a bag of M&M’s, a plate, and water. Have the children line the edges of the plate with M&M’s. Carefully pour a little water onto the plate so that all the M&M bottoms are standing in it. Then wait. As the color starts to dissolve and run towards the center of the plate, a rainbow will appear.

Blocks

Let the children use colored blocks today and challenge them to make a flower. How many shapes did they use? What shapes did you use? Show me the stem, the leaves, or the petals.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; progresses in ability to put together and take shapes apart.

Art

Give each child a paper plate and show them how to glue the triangle pedals onto it. When they have dried you can cut out stems and leaves or let the children cut out stems and leaves. These make a cute wall display. As the children are gluing the triangles on, ask them about the colors that they are using. If by chance you have foam squares, the colors are much more vibrant.

Creative Arts/Art; develops growing abilities to plan, work independently, and demonstrates care and persistence in a variety of art projects. AND Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, experiences, and projects.

Sand and Water

Add dampened sand or dirt to the table and the silk flowers. The children can pretend to plant a garden. Give them spoons or small shovels and watering cans. Do not let them add any more real water or you will have a mess.

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

Library and Writing

Put out colored markers or crayons and encourage the children to draw flowers, around shapes cut from cardboard, or to practice writing their names.

Literacy/Early Writing;experiments with a growing variety of writing tools and materials, such as pencils, crayons, and computers.

Dramatic Play

Take some of the silk/plastic flowers that you have and put them into dramatic play along with a plastic vase (a mayonnaise jar works well). Remind the children that in the story they picked the flowers and took them home. Encourage the children to make a bouquet for the vase. This can then be left on the table for future arranging.

Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Math and Manipulatives

Give the children the long strips of construction paper and the large rainbow design. Let the children snip the paper into little squares and glue to the coordinating rainbow arch.

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

Outdoor Play

If you are working on a school garden, let the children help by watering and /or planting seeds. Remind the children that in the story, the narrator and mother dug holes to plant the bulbs. Give the children shovels or spoons and let them dig holes in the sand or dirt. How big a hole can you dig? Encourage the children to work together to dig a really big hole

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games or using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive.

Transitions

Dismiss the children to the next activity by naming colors. Put one of each color strip that you made for manipulatives, or puffballs, under a blanket or into a sack that the children cannot see through. Have a child pick out a strip and name the color.

Or have the child find something in the room that is that color.

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.

Good Morning Garden, by Barbara Brenner

Everyone starts their day off a little different. In this story a little girl starts off her day by greeting all the things she finds in her garden.

Materials

Silk flowers. If you have the ‘heads’ only, pipe cleaners work well for the stems. Just cut them down to an appropriate length.
1 paper plate for every 3 children in classroom and one extra.
Pipe cleaners cut into various lengths for both sand/water play and manipulatives.

Vocabulary

Plant (flowers, vegetables, trees, and shrubs that mainly grow in the ground)
Dew (droplets of water that form on plants and other objects through condensation)
Neighborhood (a place where several or many families live)
Living (alive)
Inanimate (not alive)

Introducing the Story

Begin a discussion on morning rituals. Ask the children how they start their morning. What do you do first, next, and last. (My Daddy wakes me up and then I get dressed because I have to come to school). Let the children talk about all the things they do. As a child introduces a new activity, ask the other children if they do this too. (How many of you brush your teeth in the morning like Roger?). Tell the children that today you are going to read a story about a little girl who likes to start her day in a different way. Open up the book so the children can see the front and back covers and ask them if they can guess how this girl likes to start her day?

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

Reading the Story

Read the first page and state that the girl likes to go for a walk and say good morning to the things in her yard. Now as you go through the pages, ask the children if they can name some of the things in the yard. Use your finger to point out the items the young girl is saying good morning to. Read slowly and allow the children to enjoy the pictures and add any discussion that is appropriate to the story. (Once I saw a bumblebee in my yard and I ran away cause it was gonna sting me).

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

Open the book to any page and tell the children to look carefully at how the illustrator made the pictures. Explain to them Denise Ortakales is the illustrator and artist who cut all these little shapes of paper and glued them together to make these pictures. This technique is called paper sculpting. It takes a lot of practice to be able to cut this good; Denise Ortakales is a real artist.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; progresses in learning how to handle care for books; knowing to view one page at a time in sequence from front to back; and understanding that a book has a title, author, and illustrator.

Music and Movement

Sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the waterspout. (make hands pretend to crawl up)

Down came the rain and washed the spider out. (wiggle fingers to make rain motion)

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain (put hands over head fingers to fingers/thumb to thumb)

And the Itsy Bitsy spider, went up the spout again. (make hands pretend to crawl up)

Change the Itsy Bitsy spider to the Teeny Tiny spider and sing it in a squeaky little voice doing tiny actions. Then sing it to the Humongous spider voice and do great big spider voice and actions.

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

Put the paper plates on the floor and tell the children that they are going to pretend to be ants crawling about. When the music plays the children crawl about the room. Encourage them to crawl under the table, over the chair, beside the bookcase, walk on the blocks, jump over the stuffed animal, etc. When the music stops the children must quickly crawl to a paper plate (ant hole) where there is room for them. They must put one hand on the plate. When all the ants are in their ‘hole’, begin the music again.

Physical Health & Development/Large Motor Skills; shows increasing levels of proficiency, control, and balance walking, climbing, running, jumping, hopping, skipping, marching, and galloping.

Discovery

In this story, the girl said “good morning” to many living things. Ask the children if they can remember a few. Give the children magazines and scissors and ask them to cut out pictures of living things for you to put on a poster. If the children are cutting many living things pictures, you can change the directions to cut out inanimate objects (things that are not alive). Depending on how involved the children get, you can glue their pictures to a poster board labeled, LIVING objects and/or INANIMATE objects.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; Grows in eye-hand coordination in building with blocks, putting puzzles together, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beads, and using scissors.

Blocks

The last page of the story shows a neighborhood. Show this page to the children in the block center and challenge them to build a neighborhood. Explain that each builder will need a house and whatever else they choose to put into their neighborhood.

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Community; begins to express and understand concepts and language of geography in contexts of classroom, home, and community.

Art

Cut several sheets of construction paper into ½ inch x 6 inch strips. Accordion some of the strips, curl some of the strips, and crease the ends ½” inch in on all of the strips at both ends. Use glue sticks and show the children how to apply the glue to the ½” creased ends of the strips and hold them while they count to 10 on a piece of black construction paper. This will make a 3-dimensional paper collage. Encourage the children to use many strips gluing them under and over each other. Remind them that will have to count to ten and hold the strip in place while the glue settles and sticks. When these are finished they are fun to hang from the wall as the paper sticks out off the wall.

Creative Arts/Art; begins to plan, work independently, and demonstrate care and persistence in a variety of art projects. AND Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increasing ability to count in sequences to 10 and beyond.

Sand and Water

Add damp sand and plastic or silk flowers for planting. Add spoons and a watering can, and popsicle sticks for labeling what you are growing. If you have bean seeds or small puff balls, these can be used as ‘seeds’.

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

Library and Writing

Cut out several 3-4 inch shapes from cardboard (a circle, a square, and a triangle). Show the children how to hold the shape onto a piece of paper and trace around it with a marker. Next give the children scissors so they can practice cutting out the shapes. They can either glue them to paper or put them into an envelope for another days art project.

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

The story was about one girl’s morning rituals. Encourage the children to play out their morning rituals. Some children can be parents and some children. As you check in with the center, ask them about their own morning rituals to help guide the play along.

Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; progresses in understanding similarities and respecting differences among people such as gender, race, special needs, culture, language, and family structures.

Math and Manipulaties

Give the children play dough and pipe cleaners today. Challenge them to make a spider or insect. Can they roll out a long snake?

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

Outdoor Play

Prep your playground several days ahead of time. Lay a piece of cardboard down in a shady location (the coolness underneath attracts insects). Put out several small dishes of fruit pieces that may help attract ants. On the day of your walk, take out paper and pencil, and magnifying glasses. Go for a Living Things walk and record what they children see on the paper to share in the classroom later.

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

Transitions

Play Categories with the children. Name a category such as fruits, insects and bugs, animals that live in trees, etc. Each child must try to name something from the category before lining up or going to the next activity. For younger children, keep the categories simpler. Name red objects, things that fly, or you name an object and ask them if it is alive or inanimate. (chair, bird, television, etc.)

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

Dear Parents, today we read a book about all the wonderful living things out in a little girls neighborhood. Take your child for a walk about your yard or neighborhood and take time to see all the wonders of nature with your child.