The Garden Gals

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been focusing on gardens. This topic lends itself to many activities in all areas of development. Plus, Leia seems to be interested in gardening, so choosing this topic was easy.

Sensory

I had searched all over pinterest for ideas on garden themed sensory boxes. I found so many suggestions and went to the store with a clear vision in my head of what I wanted. However, when I finally arrived at the store and was standing there in the garden center, I began to second guess myself and had the question, "what potting soil or dirt should I use and is it actually safe for children that may decide to eat it?" So instead of risking death by potting soil, I decided to go in a different direction, and used different types of dried beans. I also purchased some plastic gardening tools and Leia picked out different artificial flowers. I added a pair of gardening gloves and the sensory tub was ready to go.

Literacy
The library had a ton of books to choose from on this topic.

•  "Jack's Garden," by Henry Cole. This story is a take-off of the rhyme, "This is the House that Jack built."
• "The Tiny Seed," by Eric Carle. This was a favorite of Leia's. She enjoyed searching for the tiny seed on the different pages. 
• "My Garden," by Kevin Henkes. This story is about a little girls dream garden, which includes chocolate bunnies and growing seashells. 
• "Whose Garden is it?" by Mary Ann Hoberman. This book asks the question, to whom does a garden really belong. It suggest many different characters and parts of nature from the gardener all the way to the seed. It is a fantastic book to illustrate everything that is needed in a garden.
• "Planting a Rainbow," by Lois Elhert.

Art
The first art project touches both on art and science. The girls created their own flowers out of construction paper and a muffin liner. After doing this we discussed the different parts of a flower and labeled the flower parts.

For the second project, the girls re-created flowers from "Planting a Rainbow." I drew the stems on the piece of paper using just a plain marker. I then re-read the story to the girls and told them to paint flowers from the story. I let the girls choose the paint colors they wanted and they all chose purple and blue.

I also purchased "stone stampers" from Wal-Mart, but we used them on paper instead of stone.The stampers went well with the garden theme.

The final thing we did was painting with leaves.

This also connected with science because the girls investigated the leaves in many ways and math because the girls sorted the leaves into different piles.

Annabelle blowing on her leaf

Brenleigh tearing her leaf apart

Leia getting a closer look.

Math
Other than the leaf sorting, we also did a "carrot patch number match." To do this I wrote a number on a triangle "carrot" and the girls had to match the proper amount of green rectangles to put on top. With Annabelle, age 2, I talked her through each of the numbers to give her age appropriate support. With Leia, age 3.5, we first discussed the different numbers, I then told her to match the proper amount of green rectangles on her own. When doing this, she placed one too many green rectangles on a "carrot." This allowed her to do some problem solving. I simply said, "oh no, I think something is wrong here." We talked about the numbers again and she took it upon herself to recount the green rectangles and fix the problem.

Removing part of her "stem" from the number 2 carrot.

 Outside
Another bonus with the gardening theme, is that Leia was eager to help pull weeds and water the plants. This of course hits on different areas of development and learning from science, fine and gross motor, and teaching her responsibility. For more information on my gardening theme, please visit my contributing blog here.

Leia watering the garden

Annabelle giving Leia water