In the garden story time

Right in with the SRP theme of Dig into Reading was our garden story time for week 2.  Luckily, the messiness of mud week had not scared the toddlers (or their mommies and caregivers away) and we had a bigger crowd than we did for the first week.

The first book that we read was Zoe Hall's The surprise garden.  In this story some children are given seeds and plant them without knowing what they are.  They look at how the seeds are different from each other and then plant them in the ground, marking them to know where they are.  Then, they tend their garden and wait for the seeds to pop up.  This book has nice, bold and colorful illustrations and is great for a discussion about gardening.

Our second story was Up, down, and around by Katherine Ayers.  This was a fun book that talked about how different plants grow; some up, some down, and some around and around.  I had the kids do the actions of up (arms up) down (arms down) and around and around (circle hands like when you sing the wheels on the bus).  This made the story more interactive.  There is not much text, but the kids had a good time doing the motions as we read.

The last story we did was the pop-up flannel board that I created.  You can read more about how I made it here.

The rhyme that went with the board goes:

One little seed planted in the ground,
Give it lots of sun, and water all around.
Now we have to wait and see,
For a sprout to pop up,
What will it be?

Then the kids told me what popped up from the seed.  They really liked this one.  At the end the worm popped up so we talked about how worms do not grow from seeds but not all seeds grow into a plant.  We also talked about how worms help the plants to grow.

We sang the song See the sun by The Learning Groove.  We talked about how gardens need the sun to grow.  This song had us walking, skipping, and flying in the sunshine.

Laurie Berkner's Fruit salad salsa fit well into the theme.  We got out the shakers for this song and salsa'd around with the fruit.

Another fun fruit song is Carole Peterson's B-bananas.  This is a fun chant where the kids are bananas, they peel bananas, eat bananas, and go bananas.  Of course it is so much fun that then you do it again!

Our craft for the week was a parts of the flower craft.  I found the idea on Pinterest, and you can see the pin here. I think it is from the blog Mrs. Mayas' Kindergarten, but someone only pinned the main website and I had trouble locating the post.

Flannel Friday: Pop-up Flannel Boards

I am sure that by now you have seen my worm flannel - you know, 'cause I've posted it twice :)  Well, since I did all that work making the foam core board for the wormies to slide along I decided I needed to find other uses for it - and so we have POP-UP flannel boards!  I have actually done something similar before with my butterfly board.  But unlike that one these can be easily changed for whatever you have made to go along with it.

If you want to know how the board itself was made you can read about it here.  To modify the board I made a 'shelf' out of cardboard and toilet paper rolls.  I decorated a cardboard strip with some flannel grass...

I put some grass on the back and the front to add a little 'depth.'

Next I cut some toilet paper rolls in half and taped them on with some heavy duty tape.  I realized after the fact that a paper towel roll would have done nicely, but I did not have one on hand and I am kind of impatient.  Anyway, I line the half rolls up along the back to make a little shelf.

Then I needed something to push it out from the board so I would have room for the flannels in the shelf.  So, more tp rolls were cut and pieces were added to each end.

I added some Velcro dots to each round piece on the end as well as to a few spots along the shelf where it will touch the board.  I forgot to take a picture with the Velcro, but it seems to do its job.

It does wobble a little, I think it will be ok for story time, but I may end up reinforcing it with some binder clips 'just in case.'

In a few weeks I am doing a gardening theme, so I came up with a rhyme about planting seeds and then various things will grow.

One little seed planted in the ground,
Give it lots of sun, and water all around.
Now we have to wait and see,
For a sprout to pop up,
What will it be?

A tree!

We will repeat with 2, 3, 4, and 5 seeds.

Wait a minute... that last guy is a worm (well, looking at it right now he's first, but whatever).  Worms don't grow from seeds!  No, worms do not grow from seeds, but they are very good for the soil and help plants grow by making food that plants can use.  And, sometimes, not all seeds grow.  Every once in awhile you get a dud. 

This week's flannel round-up can be found with Kathryn at Fun with Friends at Storytime.  All things Flannel Friday related can be found at the blog and all Flannel Friday contributions, both past and present can be seen at Pinterest.