Roots...and Our New Dramatic Play Setup!

On Tuesday we learned about roots!

During circle time I introduced the kids to our new letter Y friend!

I also showed them our letter Y cards provided by Mother Goose Time...

We sat in a circle and passed around the hands-on letter Y.  The kids took turns tracing it with their finger...

Then one volunteer revealed what was inside the peek-a-boo letter Y...

We followed the movements as we sang:

"Roots deliver food to plants,

(Touch feet on "roots deliver" then knees, hips, head.)

Food to plants,

(Touch knees, hips, head.)

Food to plants,

(Touch knees, hips, head.)

Roots deliver food to plants,

(Touch feet on "roots deliver," then knees, hips, head.)

So that they can grow.

(Hold arms out wide.)

...air to plants.

...nutrients.

(Sung to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb.")

Mother Goose provided us with the following book.  It is awesome!  It concentrates on counting, number recognition, colors, and also throws in a fun joke on every page!  Before reading I asked the kids what their favorite fruit or vegetable is.  We wondered if we would see their favorites in the book.

The following three pages were the kids favorite jokes!  They giggled a ton!

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Lettuce.

Lettuce who?

Lettuce in.  It's cold out here!

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Turnip.

Turnip who?

Turnip the music.  I love this song!

What's the scariest fruit?

BOO-berries!

Where do you think yams grow?  The kids thought yams grow on trees, but I explained they grow underground.  I placed 10 yams under a brown sheet.  We imagined the brown sheet was soil.  I asked the kids to feel around the top of the sheet and find a yam.  They pretended to dig for yams as they chose one from under the sheet.

I imagine some of the kids had never even held a yam before.  They were surprised at how hard they felt...

When all of our yams were collected, we used them to build a large letter Y...

I told the kids to find a partner and get out their nap-time blanket.  They asked their partner to close their eyes while they hid something under their blanket.  Their friend felt the top of the blanket and tried to guess what their friend hid underneath.  They checked to see if their guess was correct or not.

They imagined they were digging for root vegetables in the garden!

Next, I set out a tray full of root vegetables.  We passed the vegetables around and explored them by looking, feeling, and smelling them...

Later on in the day we ate beets with our lunch, and carrots for our snack.  We also tasted radishes with our snack!  The kids were not a big fan of the radishes.  Tomorrow we will eat yams with our lunch!

The kids got a little silly.  A mustache...

Radish hair...

A long parsnip nose...

Mother Goose provided us with a diamond/rhombus shape and yarn.  We discussed that carrots and yams look similar to a diamond/rhombus shape.

I asked the kids to make a garden picture with their diamond/rhombus.  They glued their shape on a piece of white paper and added details.  I encouraged the kids to pull apart the yarn, cut it into pieces and glue it onto the diamond/rhombus.  We imagined the yarn represented roots.

Next, we discussed the importance of roots and how water moves through them.  Mother Goose provided us with this science experiment card...

To demonstrate how roots absorb water and nutrients from soil, I filled two cups with water.  I changed the color of one cup of water to blue, and one cup to yellow (with food coloring).  I rolled up a few paper towels and placed the ends in each glass.  Immediately we could see the water being absorbed into the paper towels, much like roots!

After a while, the colors mixed at the top of the paper towel and mixed together to make green!

Mother Goose provided us with new journals.  I asked the kids to write their name on their journal and draw picture of a garden.  We discussed the difference between plants that need sun, and plants that need shade.

The kids worked on the letter Y in their literacy workbook...

They also colored all of the diamonds/rhombuses they found in their math workbook...

These were our books for the day.  We talked briefly about Cinco de Mayo.  We ate tacos for lunch!

Check out our new dramatic play area!!!!!  I set it up to be a garden/flower shop!

There are flowers dangling down from the ceiling upon entering the room...

These are the job tags: Delivery Person, Customer, Gardener, Cashier, and Florist...

Our word wall...

Colored flowers word wall...

Our garden!  I set a brown sheet down for the soil...

Gardening tools and seeds...

Bug finger puppets, and hand puppets...

Our rainbow colored produce buckets...

Our flower shop!!!!

This is the desk behind the flower shop.  It has three different colored vases, tissue paper, an apron, a phone, play money, and order forms...

Our kid-friendly order forms...

A wide variety of flowers, a flower chart, and a price sheet...

More flowers, special signs, and in the metal bucket that are small cards for addressing to someone special...

These are the cards...

I also had these headbands for dress up!

Time to play!!!!  The kids had so much fun!!!!

This sweet Mother was given all of these flowers on Mother's Day! :)

Knock, knock!  "Delivery!"

(FYI - I purchased the Flower Shop printables from Aleesia Albnese on Teachers Pay Teachers.)

Seeds...

On Monday we learned about seeds!

We started our circle time by making a diamond/rhombus with our fingers...

The kids also searched for items in the room that are shaped like a diamond/rhombus...

There wasn't a whole lot of things that were this shape, so they quickly realized that two triangles can make a diamond/rhombus!

Two set of butterfly wings also make a diamond/rhombus!

We sat in a circle and I gave each child a shape to hold.  I invited the child holding the named shaped to put it in the "garden" as we sang:

"Old McDonald had a garden.

E-I-E-I-O

And in his garden he had diamond seeds.

E-I-E-I-O

With a diamond here,

and a diamond there.

Here a diamond, there a diamond,

Everywhere a diamond seed.

Old McDonald had a garden.

E-I-E-I-O!"

Next, I asked the kids to tell me what they think grows out of a seed.  I recorded their ideas for them to read...

Mother Goose provided us with new pattern blocks this month!  I gave the blocks to the kids and asked them to sort them by their shape and color...

Next, I taught the kids that a garden of seeds is always planted in rows.  I encouraged the kids to plant a garden with the blocks by creating a different row for each shape.  We imagined what we thought would grow from each "seed."

  I left the pattern blocks out throughout the rest of the day for the kids to explore with...

For our next activity, I asked the kids what type of clothing they think would be best to wear when gardening.  They paged through our storybook and paid special attention to the different seeds and clothing the characters in the book wore.

Next, I read "Jack and the Beanstalk" along with storyboard pieces that Mother Goose provided.  This was a modern day version of the story, which was very fun and suitable for preschoolers.

  I left this out for the remainder of the day for the kids to play with and retell the story in their own way...

Mother Goose provided us with white paper, a green paper frame, and a green scrap.  I encouraged the kids to make a picture with a green frame (optional).  They could draw a garden and look through old magazines to add pictures of things they might find in a garden, or they could draw a picture of a different ending to the Jack and the Beanstalk story.

I was so impressed that R had thought to make his picture 3 dimensional!!!!

Next, I set out a couple of trays with a variety of fruits and vegetables with seeds.  I invited the kids to explore the seeds by looking, feeling, and smelling them!

While outside I surprised the kids with new items in our sensory table filled with soil!

They had so much fun playing in this!

The kids practiced counting and matching quantities in their math workbook.

They also cut apart seed packets with letters on them from their literacy workbook.  They played Memory with the cards by matching the uppercase letters to the lowercase letters.

These were our books for the day...

In the afternoon I set out many more seeds for the kids to look at.  They were surprised by the size of some of the seeds (ex: mango, avocado, and nectarine.)

Overall the kids learned that seeds can be different colors, shapes, and sizes!