Gardening

The birds are chirping and the bees are buzzing. Summer is here and little hands are eager to explore all that nature has to offer. Children are able to appreciate the small things that many adults take for granted. Give a child a shovel, bucket, and some sand, and they will play for hours! A great way to encourage their love for exploring and learning how things grow, is to plant a garden. It doesn't have to be very big. In fact, you can simply plant seeds in paper cups. Children will love to take care of "their" plant and watch it grow everyday.

Planting Seeds - Growing a Garden

Materials Needed:                     

  1. Paper or plastic cups                            2. Potting soil 

  3. Seeds                                                     4. Water

Instruct the children on filling up the cups with soil. Next have them choose which seeds they want to plant. Have them plant the seeds by pressing them down into the soil with their finger. Then have them water the seeds. Finally, place the seeds in a sunny spot in the classroom. Piece of cake! Just remember to have the children water their seeds everyday. They will have so much fun with the activity and watching their seeds grow into plants. Just look at the expressions on these boys faces, it says it all!

A variation to this activity would be to use plastic zippered bags and a wet paper towel in place of cups and soil. Place the seeds on the wet paper towels and place in bags. Close bags and tape to a window that gets plenty of sunlight. Seeds will sprout in a few days. This is a great way for children to learn about the plant life cycle!

Ideas for Incorporating a Gardening Theme in Your Classroom

• Flower Shop: turn your dramatic play center into a flower shop by adding small flower boxes, artificial flowers (individually cut), and floral foam. Children will have a great time making flower arrangements. Don't forget a cash register so the children can buy and sell their creations! For a sensory table idea, use potting soil mix instead of foam to plant flowers in small pots.  

• Sensory Table: there are so many different things you can add to the sensory table. Potting soil, real flowers and plants, seeds, rocks, sticks, and dirt make great additions to the sensory table. Don't forget about adding fruit and vegetable toys, small shovels and rakes too!

  I hope the these ideas will help you bring out the little gardeners in your classroom!

 

Creating a Love for Learning through Emergent Curriculum

Take a moment think back to your fondest childhood memory of when you were playing and discovered something amazing. It could be that you found a cocoon and watched as a butterfly slowly pulled itself out and then fluttered away. Or, perhaps you planted a seed in a cup. Day after day you went back and checked to see if anything had happened. Until one day you discover a tiny little sprout has pushed its way through the soil. Do you remember how excited you were? How you couldn't wait to tell and show everyone? 

Emergent Curriculum 

When we get excited about something, we are eager to learn as much as possible about it. The same is true for children. Children are natural born learners who are hungry for knowledge, even though they don't know it. By setting up an environment that allows children to explore, play, and express their creativity; countless learning opportunities abound.

So what is Emergent Curriculum?

Simply put, it is a way of teaching based off of what children already know and what they are interested in. By taking into account children's abilities, interests, and by taking time to cover each topic thoroughly; children will gain a much deeper understanding of the learning concepts. Children will be engaged in learning, which in turn, creates a of love of learning. With a little guidance and prompting of the children, you will be able to plan exciting and engaging lesson plans!

Aa Adventure in Autumn 

Late in September I introduced the letter Aa  and the season of Autumn to my daughter. After reading a book about all four seasons, my daughter was very interested in learning how plants grow. One thing lead to another. Her natural curiosity and love of learning lead us on a fun journey with the letter Aa, apples, the season of Fall, and how leaves turn water and sunlight into food for trees to grow.

Here is a glimpse of her Aa Adventure in Autumn.

Autumn Nature Walk

After learning that the season is Autumn/Fall, we went on a nature walk to look at the leaves on the trees. Next, we gathered leaves and other items that were red, yellow, brown, and green. Along the way we discovered a spider web that was covered with rain drops. She asked me to take a picture of it because "It is so beautiful!"

Nature Walk 

Nature Collage 

My little princess found a bunch of "treasure," she even found a dollar by our swing set! She also spotted red and yellow peppers growing in the garden. After the "treasure" dried out, we made a nature collage by gluing and taping the leaves and other items we collected onto construction paper. Another great idea is to use clear contact paper to make a beautiful two sided collage. 

Autumn Treasure

Throughout the week I would prompt my daughter into discussing in detail everything that was fun and exciting to her. She talked a lot about the leaves changing colors and falling off the trees. I also had her record her experiences in her journal in the form of drawing pictures. I helped her by captioning them.

 I hope this gives you inspiration to follow an emergent curriculum and hope you have just as much fun as we did!

Construction Theme

    The theme for the month of August is construction. After searching the Internet and not being able to find a lot of ideas on how to decorate the classrooms/center we decided to come up with our own. Here are a few ideas that our teachers came up with or found online to decorate their classrooms. All of the decorations that we made were laminated for durability. Plus, it will give us a jump start for decorating next year since we going to save them.

1. Skyscraper with hand print windows - This was made by one of our two year old classrooms.The skyscraper was created using construction paper. The teachers cut squares out of white construction paper. Next the teachers painted each child's hand with different colored paint and pressed it to the squares. The children used the same paint to paint tongue depressors. The tongue depressors where glued together around the hand print to make the frame for the windows. Once dried the teachers taped them to the skyscraper.

2. Homemade Blocks - These blocks were added to discovery lab to encourage the children to "construct" big skyscrapers and buildings. 

To make the blocks you need:     

• Boxes of different sizes
• Butcher paper (on a roll) 
• Colored contact paper (any will do but we used some that looks like wood)                 

Wrap the boxes like you would when wrapping a present. The butcher paper will need to have all the edges sealed with tape so the children can't unwrap them. 

We started out with the butcher paper but found that the colored contact paper was better to work with plus it eliminated the need to have to tape up the edges of the paper. The boxes also stand up to the wear and tear better when the children are playing with them. Another idea is to have the children decorate the butcher paper blocks. Either way the blocks turned out really cute!              

3. Blue Prints - We used blue prints as decorations around the classroom. The children also made their own blue prints. You can find blue prints at construction companies. Usually they are glad to give you old blue prints for free. Another idea is to let the children color the blue prints and display them around your classroom.   

                

4. Egg Carton Dump Trucks - Our four year old class made these cute little dump trucks. The children had a great time making them!

                           

They used this link for directions http://dltk-kids.com/crafts/transportation/pegg_carton_dump_truck.asp

5. Bulletin Board/Wall Display: Children Working Together - One of our four years old teacher came up with this cute display. Along with our construction theme the fours are learning how to "work together." It takes team effort to help "build" a great classroom! Everyone has an important job to do, just like the construction workers!

To make this display you need:

•  Poster board
• Pencil
• Black permanent marker
• Foam letter stickers
• Letters to spell out - Kids Working Together (You can buy or make them yourself from construction paper)
• Foam letters (for the children's name)
• Construction boarder (optional)
• Ruler

Making the crossword pattern will take some planning. Using a scratch piece of paper, start with the longest child's name in your classroom and go from there, creating a crossword puzzle design. Each display will be different based on the names of the children used. Once you figure out how to have each child's name connected to the other, use a pencil and a ruler to make the crossword pattern on your poster board. When finished trace over the pencil using a permanent marker. Finally, place the foam letters in the boxes. After hanging your display place boarder around the poster board. Add the title, and you have your "kids working together" display!  

6. "Roadwork" Collage - Here is a cute idea for an art project. All you need is construction paper and glue. Cut out white construction paper for the white lines on a road, yellow for the yellow lines on the road, and orange for caution cones. Have the children arrange them anyway they like!



 7. Construction Signs - These signs were created using construction paper and a permanent marker. Then they were laminated.     

             

8. Construction Signs - This sign was printed on yellow copy paper and laminated. We found this sign using Google search. It was displayed on our glass door leading into our center from the front office.  How cute is that!?

                                  

Another useful link for signs is: http://www.educationworld.com/tools_templates/construction_sign.gif 

9. Building Houses Craft - Our three year old class "constructed" these houses out of various containers and boxes of different sizes. They taped and glued construction paper on the containers. Then they colored and decorated them to look like houses.



10. Construction Patterns - We used Google to search for various construction patterns. Some cute ones we found were of a construction hat and traffic cone. These were printed on yellow and orange copy paper and then laminated. We also found a construction theme bulletin board set at our local teacher supply store. They made great decorations for around the center! You can also find plenty of coloring sheets of cranes, trucks, and other construction machines.

11. Caution Tape - Caution tape makes great decoration for a construction theme. The only problem is that we didn't have very much and it is extremely hard to find unless it is Halloween time. So we decided to make our own! All you need is yellow construction paper, ruler, and a black permanent marker. We also laminated them.

12. Pictures of "construction" - You can find pictures of construction related vehicles, buildings, etc. in magazines and off the Internet. When printing pictures, make sure they are in color and then laminate them for durability. These pictures should be placed around the classroom and especially in the block center on the children's eye level. This gives the children the opportunity to talk about the pictures with their teachers and peers. It helps get the creative juices flowing!

13. Caution Sign File Folder Game - here is a math file folder game I made. You can find it on my TpT  store for free!  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Kristina-Foss/

File Folder Game

Bringing it all together: Along with the above ideas, here are a few other things that you can do to bring the construction theme all together:

• Add different block and/or building materials to the block center
• Add tools (real or toy) to block center
• Add hard hats and tool belts to dramatic play center
• Add books about tools and construction to literacy center
• Add saw dust to sensory table
• Use tools instead of cookie cutters for play dough
• Add pictures of construction and tools in color around the classroom and encourage children to look at and ask questions about them.
• Add a scrap wood with nails hammered into them (just enough so they don't come out), small hammers, and small hand held saws to the sensory table (this would be a well supervised and for older children activity) For younger children you can use golf tees and have them bang them into a cardboard box with a hammer. 
  
  
  
  
  I hope you enjoy these ideas and good luck in your classrooms!