Sweet Smiles Preschool: Produce...

On Thursday we learned all about produce!

Mother Goose provided us with these photos of fruits and vegetables (produce).

We sang:

"My garden is full of vegetables.

Full of vegetables, full of vegetables.

My garden is full of vegetables.

(Name), pick one!"

(Sung to the tune of "London Bridges.")

The child who was named chose a vegetable and identified the name of it. We repeated the song for each child to have a turn.

During circle time we looked closely again at our pattern on our May calendar. I am so proud of these kids! Most of them actually know how to state what type of pattern they see (AABBCC).

Mother Goose provided us with a new AABBCC pattern card with photos of vegetables from the garden. We shared what our favorite type of produce is, and what we like to eat.

I had one volunteer demonstrate how to use the pattern card while the others helped him by stating what they think should come next.

The kids always get so excited to see how long the pattern will turn out to be. We decided to measure how long it was with our tape measure. It was 47 inches! I left the pattern card out for the remainder of the day for the other kids to practice with.

Next, I asked the kids if any of them have a garden at home. If not, they shared what they would like to grow in a garden. Mother Goose provided us with these materials for an AWESOME garden craft!

Before I begin most projects, I demonstrate how to do it myself. The kids gain so much by watching me first. They are never required to copy my work exactly, but sometimes the work can seem overwhelming without a little guidance. I have always ordered one additional set of curriculum materials for this purpose. If I feel there is no need to first demonstrate the set of directions, I will sit down with the kids and do my project with them. It gives me a chance to interact with the kids as a peer rather than their teacher. I know they appreciate this quality time together!

This craft had many steps, but the kids all completed the project independently. They were proud of their work,and rightfully so! First, the kids cut vegetables/fruits they would see in a garden from their colored paper. This actually prompted a great discussion! At first the kids wanted to make bananas, and pineapple with the yellow paper. I gave them the freedom to make whatever they wanted, but it was a great opportunity for me to inform them of where each fruit and vegetable actually comes from.

Check out their work space! The tables were filled! No one really likes cleaning up afterwards, but the mess honestly excites me. I know they are comfortable and their minds are busy being creative! Preschool at its finest!

After they cut their fruits and vegetables, they painted six craft sticks green for the stems, and their egg carton brown for the soil. We will wait overnight for these things to dry, then I will help them assemble their gardens.

Here are the completed gardens! Aren't these adorable?! I am so proud of all the work displayed here! (The kids could not play with them until Friday because the paint was too wet. See Friday's post, to see how the kids played with their garden project!)

In each box of curriculum, Mother Goose has provided us with new manipulatives for the kids to learn and PLAY with! This month they provided us with pattern blocks and these cute colored bunnies. The kids LOVE them!!!! In my eyes, they are new leaning materials. In their eyes they are new toys!

I simply set out the bunnies, plastic cups (for bunny holes/homes), and the produce photos (from our earlier activity). I explained to the kids that bunnies like gardens, but gardeners do not like bunnies near their garden. I asked the kids to tell me why that is. I gave the kids the freedom to play with the food photos and bunnies any way they desired, but I started them off by having them imagine that the bunnies were invading the garden. They had to run and catch the bunnies and put them in a plastic cup that we pretended was their home (a hole in the ground.)

The kids had so much fun, and I cannot say enough how much they LOVE these bunnies! After a while they didn't want much to do with the cups. They wanted to hide the bunnies in different crevices throughout the classroom. They hid them and then had their friends try to find them. There was a lot of dramatic play, imagination, and expressive language going on throughout the day as they played with these! Thank you Mother Goose Time!

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the kids insisted that we match up the colored bunnies to the same colored food.

We didn't have any blue food for the blue bunnies, so the kids imagined they were sitting next to blueberries!

The kids worked on ending sounds in their literacy workbook...

They also worked on filling in the missing numbers in their math workbook...

For our next activity, I set out grocery store ads for the kids to read. They looked for produce. I love these photos! There is something so adorable about kids reading newspapers!

After we looked through the ads, I set out this activity I made. The kids sorted through coupons that I laminated. They had to sort the unhealthy foods (sometimes foods), from the healthy foods (anytime foods).

This was our book for the day. This was another great book recommendation from Mother Goose Time. This is a story about a girl who becomes friends with her squash that she bought at the Farmer's Market. After a long while the squash rots, but she makes a new squash by planting the seeds. It is a sweet story!

In the afternoon I set out this awesome new learning center I bought at Lakeshore Learning! This activity is all magnetic, and the kids work right inside the lid of the tin. There are a total of 8 different learning mats and 30 magnets. I only set out two mats on this day, but I will set out different ones in the days to come. The kids liked reinforcing what we have learned about while playing with this!

First, I took out the "Parts of a Plant" activity.

I also took out a sorting mat where they sorted the fruits from the vegetables.

The child on the right is holding the key provided in the tin, so he can double check his work.

More than one child can work at a time, if they don't mind not using the tin...

One child decided to assemble the plant on all by herself on the backside of the activity mat.

Our flower crafts were dry from Wednesday! The kids has so much fun playing with these!

They headed right to our dramatic play area! We currently have a flower shop and garden set up. Their imaginative minds makes my heart happy!

N is tending to her garden. They are pleading for water or they might die!

They cheered when they got to grow!

L and J pretended they got tangled! They asked a friend to "pick" them apart!

Some of the kids grew really fast, and some were more shy and grew slowly.

I love dramatic play activities because it doesn't matter if the child is 2, 3, 4 or 5 years old. They all have fun and play so well together, but most importantly they all learn from each other!