Day 20:
We went to Inniswood Metro Gardens again today. Snugglepuppy loved playing in the water. That was his favorite part and then he kept asking for the playgound which they don't have. But we went down to the wetlands and across the bridge at the Sister's Garden where we saw lots of frogs!
That was pretty much our day besides our pizza pizza party. Snugglepuppy only took one bite of pizza though. Then bed time!
We are studying Spring in our class this month. Here are some photos of how we arranged the dramatic play area into a Spring area.
Frogs on lily pads with cattails.
Logs made from rolled up brown construction paper and little plastic butterflies, lily pads and frogs.
Light table against the wall with bean bags around it to sit on.
This interactive wall has foam cutouts of fish, ducks, and frogs that are stuck on with velcro so kids can take them down and put them up how they want. There are also words stuck on with velcro to match with the animals. Our table is decorated with flowers and a watering can and there are dishes and food available for kids to have a picnic if they want.
We also planted flowers in cutoff water bottles. Here are a couple of pictures.
Happy Spring and hope you enjoy some fun activities with your kiddos!
We just wrapped up our plant study that lasted about a month. Some of the topics we covered included:
Where can plants grow?
What are the parts of a plant?
Does a plant need soil to grow?
What do you need to do to plant a garden?
Here is my original post about our garden center. We have done so much since then! Here are 10 of our favorite activities.
1. Tracking the growth of our plants.
The different seeds we planted included pinto beans, sunflowers, marigolds, and forget-me-nots. As you can see, some starting growing much faster than others. Each day the children looked to see if their plant was coming up yet and we made a list.
Here is a closeup of what they looked like toward the end of the study when we sent them home.
2. Writing nature words.
3. Nature walk at our living habitat.
The children pointed out lots of things they saw growing. This was also one of the ways we investigated our study question: Where can plants grow?
They documented what they saw on mini clipboards.
We discussed different environments including wetlands.
4. We used the felt board to sort some laminated photos of plants growing in different types of habitats.
5. We talked about how fruits grow on plants and graphed our favorite one by writing names.
6. We did a chart of different questions relating to our previous experiences such as:
Have you ever made a bouquet of flowers?
Have you ever seen a plant growing in snow?
Have you ever been to a greenhouse?
Then we counted the amount of each answer to see which was the most and which was the least.
7. We filled our sensory table with water beads.
8. We filled our sensory table with sand and soil.
9. Gluing seeds in the center of a sunflower. I can't honestly take credit for this one, it's my nephew's artwork from preschool. But it is a great idea and if I would've seen this sooner, we would have done it as well.
10. We read some great picture books about plants and gardens which you will definitely want to check out if you are doing a plant study.
