Week 32 Day 2

Book choices for today:

Gardner’s Alphabet   Mary Azarian
From the Garden   Michael Dahl
Vegetable Garden   Douglas Florian
In the Garden   Peggy Collins

Botany: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Different seeds to be planted. Great seeds for children to plant are lima beans and sunflower seeds. Enough soil and small pots for the children. If you have a location for an outdoor garden or raised bed garden, incorporate planting in that as well.

Botany 32
Today we are going to have fun planting seeds. Looking at these seeds, it is amazing to think they will grow and become a plant. We have sunflower seeds so they will grow and become a beautiful sunflower for a flower garden to be enjoyed. These are lima bean seeds. These will grow into a plant for a vegetable garden with beans on the plant to be eaten. We have talked about different gardens and the different ways people like to begin a garden. We are going to start our seeds in small pots to be transplanted into a garden spot later. We will start these seeds here at school in small pots and take care of them until they grow enough for you to take home and plant. Then at home you can continue to take care of your plants while they continue to grow.
What is inside these seeds? An embryo, or tiny baby plant waiting to grow. What do we need to help these seeds grow? Soil, water, and sunlight. Once the seeds are in the soil and they are watered what will first start to grow out of the seed? The root will grow down into the soil first. We then wait for what to grow next? The stem will start to grow up and push its way out of the soil! How much water do you think you need to give your seeds? Too much will not work, so we have to be careful and gently care for our seeds.
(Each child can plant their seeds and demonstrate the way you would like them to be watered)

Children can water their plants and place a stick inside the plant to remind them that they already watered it. Keep an eye on the plants and remove sticks as needed to help children recognize when they become dry and need to be watered. No stick means the plant needs to be watered. As you do this help children to feel the soil and help them to recognize how many days ago they watered it. To water seedlings, provide a spray bottle to help children with over watering.

Practical Life:

Care of Plants – On a tray provide cotton balls,q-tips, sponge, and a spray bottle. Children can choose a small plant from the classroom or you can determine which plant needs care and place it on the tray each day. Children spray an individual leaf and wipe it with a q-tip or cotton ball to help the leaves stay dust free. This helps them to be shiny and clean and provides them with a ‘dust-free’ leaf to make food for the plant. A nice opportunity to review photosynthesis!

Additional Works:

Sorting – Children sort flower and vegetable seed packets, from homeschoolcreations.com

Seed Matching – Children match the seeds to the packet of what kind of seeds they are. I have these out at the beginning of the school year during our unit study of seeds, and bring them back out again while we are planting seeds.

Garden Three-part Matching – These cards are from homeschoolcreations.com

Carrot Counting 1-10 – I found these cute wooden carrots at a dollar type store and made them into a counting work. I used rabbit stickers to make the numeral cards with.

Songs/Poems:

Seed Poem
I am under the soft brown earth,
I am moving so very slow,
Inching my way to the top of the ground,
Where you can see me grow!

Five Potted Flowers
Five potted flowers in the corner store.
A lady came and bought one and then there were four.
Four potted flowers pretty as can be.
A lady came and bought one then there were three.
Three potted flowers, yellow, white, and blue,
A lady came and bought one and then there were two.
Two potted flowers became best friends
A lady came and bought them both, and so the story ends.

Five Potted Flowers (above) – Replace the word ‘lady’ in the poem with a child’s name while you say the poem. That child can walk over and choose (buy) a pot to take back to their seat.

Botany: (second circle)

Need for lesson – The book, Jack’s Garden or other garden story to be a Book on the Shelf. I made these props to go with the story. Before reading the story talk about how the planting that the children did and how they will begin to care for the garden and /or plants.

Additional Work:

Garden Sensory Tub

Song (CD) choices for today:

Inch by Inch   Raffi’s Box of Sunshine
Super Seeds   Make Believe – Macmillan
Growing Plants   Our Earth – Macmillan
Growing   Hap Palmer
I Like Potatoes   Greg & Steve