In the Garden with Preschoolers: Mother Goose Time
This month, Mother Goose Time preschool has been all about the Garden. We’ve had a wonderful time learning about plants, animals and so much more. Little Miss (wishes) she had a green thumb, so we’ve spent plenty of time working on our own Garden. In preparation for this month, we started some seedlings indoors, so we have a nice start for summer vegetables right out back.
Here are some of the highlights from this month:
Little Miss loves worms, and one of her favorite days was learning all about them. We learned how worms help make the soil nutritious for plants, and how they are slimy because they breathe through their skin. She started her worm painting by using a rubber worm but soon decided she really wanted to use a paint brush.
She also went out into the yard to dig for her own worms. Little Miss is not squeamish at all (unlike her Mama). She found a whole bunch of worms and we talked about being gentle with them. Once she was done playing, she put the worms in the compost bin to help speed along the process!
We also spent plenty of time this month in our own garden. We planted tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers, peas, squash and cucumber, and everything is really starting to get big. Some of the plants have even started flowering!
One of my personal favorite lessons this month was on the parts of a plant. I thought it was great that a preschool program covered this, and Little Miss learned the parts of a plant like a champ. After looking at our plants in the garden, we came inside to look at some pictures, and she put together her own diagram of the parts of the plant.
For this lesson, she had to cut out leaves (my stubborn girl only wanted to do one), and create a flower out of tissue paper (she insisted the flower could be a rectangle). Then, she took all the elements and put them together where they needed to go with glue. I am so impressed with how far she’s come in the last couple months to get the glue where it needed to be!
Then, she had to take the labels and put them where they belong. I had her sound out the first letter, and then she placed them on the diagram.
Little Miss also loved the manipulatives that came this month. She used the cute counting bunnies to practice the letter R, and also to do some simple math. I love the word problem story cards, and Mr Man loves to help her with them.
Another thing we did this month was let Little Miss help us more with dinner. We’ve been having a lot of salads lately! She loves knowing the plants grew in the garden, and she loves to help! One lesson earlier this month had us looking at seeds in plants, and she still loves looking for them as we cook.
We’ve done so much this month, and I love how all the activities, math, reading, crafts, science- it all fits into the gardening theme! We’re going to miss playing in the Garden, but we’re ready for the next subject!
These materials were provided to us for free as part of the Mother Goose Time blog ambassador program.