Clara’s Strawberry Sprout

In Tot School last week Clara planted some strawberry seeds. We placed the container on the windowsill and have been waiting for the seeds to sprout. We were all so excited when we checked on it and found this little green sprout!!

We can’t wait to watch it grow. In the meantime we will be working on lots of fun plant art and science projects and reading books all about gardens, seeds and planting.

We have already really enjoyed these great books about plants and gardens:

The Small Seed, by Judith Nicholls ~ We are loving that this is a touch and feel book. It starts out with a small seed being planted and grows, roots a shoot and then a stem. Finallly, there is a beautiful sunflower. All done in a fun rhyiming text. Clara loves finding the touch and feel part on each page and I think the tactile interaction helps her retain the information better too.

The Surprise Garden, by Zoe Hall ~ This is a fun book that shares the journey of 3 children planting a garden that surprises them with all the wonderful food that grows from the plants. I really liked how it talks about the different parts of the plants that we eat. All of the girls have really enjoyed this book which is always nice. We also really enjoyed the collage like illustrations in this book.

Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, by Kate Messner ~ I really love this book because it shows young readers what is going on not only Up in the Garden where the plants are sprouting and growing, but down in the dirt in the hidden world where the roots are growing and insects creating creating tunnels and burrows. This is the story of a garden over the course of a year. We really enjoyed looking at the illustrations and finding all the fun details on each page. At the end of our book was a quick refrence page that gave a few facts about the different animals that were introduced in the garden and explained that some are helpful and others are not. Again I liked that this books was fun for all the girls to read together.

What are some of your favorite planting themed books?

For more planting fun and activities be sure to check out some of the plant and garden projects we have done already!!!

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Tops and Bottoms: Folktales ~ Poppins Book Nook

 

This month the girls and I had so much fun reading a bunch of different folktales.  Our favorite was definitely Tops & Bottoms !!  This is a trickster tale about a rabbit who tricks a lazy bear by growing veggies on his land and offering the bear of a choice of which part of the plant he wanted.  The girls were amused by how the rabbit kept giving the bear the less desirable part of the plants.

After reading this book we were busy planting our own garden and talking about the different parts of the plants that we eat.  Now we can’t wait for everything to grow!!!

Check out these other creative blogs to find more “Folktale” themed books and activities

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy  ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy's Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy's Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Water on the Floor ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom's Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A "Peace" of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama

An InLinkz Link-up

Digging for…

…PEANUTS!!

This summer we planted peanut seeds to grow our own peanut plants and have been waiting to see if we actually grew any peanuts.  We were motivated to dig for them after Emily spotted a squirrel sitting on the planter digging through it.

I set the planter on the floor for the girls and gave them some spoons to go digging for peanuts.

We grew about 7 which we were so excited for.

    Emily thought it was so cool that they were all under the soil.  I can’t wait to try this again next year.

stART ~ Planting a Rainbow

 

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures so that everyone can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.

I added a stART tab in my navigation bar to make it easier to search for past stART projects. Be sure to check it out!! All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

This week we read Planting a Rainbow, by Lois Ehlert.  This is a colorful picture book that is great for teaching children about planting a growing a garden.  I love that the flowers and plants are labeled so that I can teach Emily the real names of each plant.

After reading the story Emily made her own garden rainbow!!  I saw the idea for this project in her Highlights High Five magazine and knew I wanted to try it with her.

First I cut out a bunch of yellow circles and gave them to Emily to glue on a large piece of white paper. Next, I gave her a small sponge and different colors of paint and had her sponge paint around the yellow circles.

After that, Emily drew stems and leaves on the flowers.

Emily’s Flower Garden

stART ~ One Watermelon Seed

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures so that everyone can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.

I added a stART tab in my navigation bar to make it easier to search for past stART projects. Be sure to check it out!! All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

We have been doing a lot of planting and our seeds are starting to grow into some nice big plants.  During our last trip to the library we borrowed the book One Watermelon Seed, by Celia Barker Lottridge.  This is a  beautifully illustrated gardening counting book.  The story starts with two children planting their garden with one watermelon seed, and then two pumpkin seeds all the way to 10 seeds.  Finally they harvest 10 watermelons and then 20 pumpkins and so on.  I loved the concept that just a few seeds could give us such an abundance of wonderful fruits and vegetables! 

Since we have been talking about and growing plants Emily has been asking a lot of questions about them.   She was very curious about the parts of the plants, especially the roots.  We grew some bean plants in a clear cup so  that she was able to see the roots growing in the soil, and I am hoping to do a germination bag with her this week too.  But, for our art project she created a flower which showed all the different parts.

First, I drew some roots at the bottom of a white piece of paper with a white crayon.

Then I gave Emily some crayons and had her draw a flower, she was not in a good mood and did not want to draw so she scribbled a blob (flower) and then asked for help.  I told her we would do the flower a different way and not to worry about it, this made her happy and we were able to continue with the project.

Next she used brown water colors to color in the soil, this made the roots magically appear at the bottom of the page.  She was SO excited when this happened and kept saying “Mommy look the roots the roots!!”

When she finished with the soil, she water colored the sky blue.

Finally I gave her a bean for the seed,  a construction paper stem, leaves and flower and a circle sticker to create her flower out of.  She was much happier with this flower!

Emily’s finished flower with magic roots :)

stART ~ One Bean

Welcome to  stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too.  All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures so that everyone can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.

I added a stART tab in my navigation bar to make it easier to search for past stART projects.  Be sure to check it out!!  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order. 

This week we read One Bean, by Anne Rockwell.  I have to admit that when I saw this book at the library I was drawn in by the cute cover and the excitement of planting our own bean seeds.  When I opened the book I was not sure if it would hold Emily’s attention since there were a lot of words on each page, however I figured it was worth a try.  I am SO glad that I did.  Emily really enjoyed this book.  It is a simple, yet informative book about planting for preschoolers.  The illustrations are bright and simple, yet very accurate.  This is a great book to go along with any planting unit especially planting beans!!

Emily and I planted beans in a egg carton container that Emily painted.  We both agreed that this was the perfect project to go along with this book.

The book started with the description of a bean so I gave Emily one of our beans (I dried and saved them from last years bean plant).  Emily enjoyed actually getting to touch and describe our bean too.

 

Emily sprayed a paper towel with water to get the beans ready to be planted just like in the book.  This step helps the beans to sprout quicker, plus it was fun for Emily she loved using the spray bottle!  All we did was wet the paper towel and then place the beans on it.  Cover them and let them soak a bit.

Now we were ready for our art project.  To make the container for the beans we used an egg carton.  I have seen this done many times before, but have never actually tried it myself.  So I can’t wait to see what happens!  First I cut the top off of the egg carton.  We are going to use this as our holder, I figured it would collect any water that may seep through the egg carton.  I gave Emily different colors of paint and let her cover the whole thing!

We put the top part that Emily painted under the egg carton and then she filled up the egg cup part with soil.  

Emily added one bean seed to each cup.

Then she covered them with some more soil.

Finally she used the dropper to water each section.  I think this was actually her favorite part!

Emily’s finished planter!!

***It seemed like most people liked the thumbnail linky, I was able to make the title a bit longer so I am going to give this a try.  Let me know if this is better.  I can’t wait to see all your great projects!!!

Strawberry Picking!!

Today some of our strawberries were ready to be picked and Emily and I both couldn't have been more excited!!

Every day we have been going to check on our strawberries...I pointed out the first white flowers a while ago and told Emily that soon there would be strawberries where we saw the flowers. Soon enough the tiny green strawberries appeared and Emily loved checking to see how big they were getting. Just the other day we noticed that they were turning red and finally today some were perfect for picking!!

Emily enjoyed a fresh strawberry snack right from our garden!

Of course we had to read The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear, by Don and Audery Wood after our snack. This has been Emily's favorite book this whole week. Emily loved that we shared the strawberries like in the book!!!

Our Seeds Have Sprouted!!

Emily and I have been checking the seeds that we planted every day since Tuesday, April 21 and finally today, a little over a week later we were able to count 3 little Parsley sprouts!!!

Emily was so excited to see something in the dirt. I can't wait to see how excited she gets as they get bigger and bigger!!

Emily's Garden

Pop Up Flower Pot Puppet

This week we have been talking about planting seeds and flowers growing. This project is a lot of fun to make and play with! Emily and I made a similar puppet for Groundhogs Day and Emily still loves to sing the song and play with the puppet more than 2 months later!

First, Emily painted the inside of a cup brown like soil.

Then Emily decorated the outside of the pot with bug stickers.

Emily really enjoys peeling and sticking stickers recently!

I made the flower with foam, a pipe cleaner and a green straw.

I cut out 2 flower shapes from pink foam and one circle from yellow foam to fit in the middle of the flower. I punched a hole in the 2 flower shapes and poked 2 small holes in the circle. Next, I threaded the 2 flower shapes onto the pipe cleaner leaving a tale at the end. Then I added the circle foam and put the pipe cleaner back through the holes and twisted it around the tale to secure it. Finally, I put the tale end of the pipe cleaner in one end of the straw with some glue to help hold it in place. For the leaves I just cut out a double leaf shape from green foam, punched a hole in the middle and stuck the straw through it.

**I actually might try this with Emily to make a spring flower bouquet for the table...they really look pretty!!

I poked a hole in the bottom of the paper cup and put the straw through the hole so that the flower can be pulled and pushed up and down into and out of the cup.

The Way We Plant Our Seed

To the tune of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush"

This is the way we plant our seed, plant our seed, plant our seed.

This is the way we plant our seed so early in the morning!

(Keep the flower in the cup and pretend to plant a seed)

This is the way our seed will grow, seed will grow, seed will grow.

This is the way our seed will grow so early in the morning!

(Push the bottom of the straw up to make the flower pop out of the cup)

Unplugged Project ~ Science

Earth Day Planting

This weeks Unplugged Project was "Science" and I knew that I wanted to do planting with Emily for this project.

I went to the dollar store hoping to find a small bag of soil and some cheap seeds, but found a really cute planting set instead. It came with a nice sized Terracotta pot, a soil pod and celery seeds. I had Emily decorate the pot with markers and stickers...we had really cute flower and ladybug stickers in our sticker bin!! Then we had to "make" the soil. This turned out to be a fun project in itself. Finally we got to plant our seeds. I can't wait for them to sprout. I know that Emily is going to be so excited to see the first little green sprouts popping through the soil!!!

Emily coloring on the pot with markers.

Emily adding ladybug and flower stickers to her pot.

Making the soil ~ First, Emily had to drop the seed pod into a cup of warm water.

Next, we both had to wait patiently for about 5 minutes to see what would happen. To make the time go faster we read The Carrot Seed, by Ruth Krauss. The pod tripled in size as it absorbed the water. Emily thought it was really neat that it was growing!!

Then, Emily fluffed up the soil with a fork. I helped her get it started because it was a little hard for her at first. It was all stuck together and our plastic fork was not that strong :0)

It's planting time! I added most of the soil to the pot and Emily sprinkled the celery seeds over it.

I was planning on putting the rest of the soil on top myself, however Emily insisted that she could do it and she did a great job! She didn't spill any of it...what a big girl.

Emily patted the top down with the fork.

We set it in a sunny window to wait for the seeds to sprout and grow so we can eat it!