Growing Gardens! Happy May Day! Our lesson on soil...

On Friday we started a new curriculum theme: Growing Gardens!
For the first five days we will be learning about planting a garden: soil, seeds, sun & water, roots, and worms.  On Friday we started out learning about soil...

Mother Goose provides a written family newsletter every month.  I am always so grateful for this helpful resource!

Our bookcase if full of all new reading materials!  We are set to read about gardening all month long!

During circle time each child found the letter that their name starts with on our peek-a-boo alphabet display.  They took their letter down and shared the picture of what was inside.

We sat in a circle and passed around a small container of soil as we sang:

"Plants grow in the soil.

Plants grow in the soil.

It has lots of nutrients.

Plants grow in the soil."

(Sung to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell.")

At the end of the song, the person who was holding the container of soil stood up and pretended to grow.

For our first activity Mother Goose provided us with new nametags. 

The kids practiced writing their names...

Then I set out a pan of dirt.  The kids practiced writing letters (from the nametags), numbers or symbols in the dirt.

We wanted to see if making the dirt wet would make it easier to see our letter markings...

Playing in wet soil was very messy, but a lot of fun!

Mother Goose provided the following supplies for a gardening project...

The kids filled their own container with soil...

They each sprinkled some grass seeds in their soil and then watered it with a spray bottle...

We made close observations as to what we saw...

Mother Goose provided us with a "Growing Garden Observation Record."  The kids drew what they observed on DAY 1...

The kids knew that seeds need soil, water, and sun in order to grow.  They didn't know that we can place our seeds near a window though, instead of outside.  Cross your fingers that our grass seeds grow!!!

For our next activity I showed the kids new paper magnifying glasses that go along with our theme poster for the month.  Each magnifying glass has a picture that they have to find on our poster.  I always ask the kids to not point to where the object it, but instead describe where the object is by giving positional words.

Each magnifying glass has questions/activities on the back..

Next, we headed outside!  I brought our sensory table outside and filled it with soil and five containers of different sizes.  I encouraged the kids to explore measuring the capacity of each container.  I also encouraged them to estimate how much soil would fit in each container in comparison to the other sizes.

While the kids waited their turn at the sensory table, I asked the kids to look in the soil in the backyard to find things that are living and nonliving.  The kids knew right away to look under big rocks to find something that is living.

It was long before they found something alive!  This little critter was pretty gruesome, but I encouraged their exploration...

It was a super long centipede that the kids named their "little pet snake!"  Lol!

The kids also found a dead worm on the sidewalk...

Later on we worked in our literacy workbook...

...and our math workbook...

For our closing song, the kids set out blankets that they pretended was a garden.   They danced along to the song, "Carrot Top Pop" on our Growing Garden CD.

They acted out the lyrics to the song...

These were our books for the day.  Both are excellent!

In the afternoon I set out the following supplies for the kids to make a May Day craft.  I included colored paper, colored muffin liners, green straws, and yellow milk gallon caps.  We discussed what May Day is, and I encouraged them to make something to give to someone else to brighten their day.