Even More... From seeds to plants

Before I begin my regular blog post, I wanted to share with you about a new children's book one of my former preschool parents has written about gardening in Detroit. I was lucky enough to get to take a sneak peak at it this morning before she even debuts it to the public!  It is a wonderful children's book about a little girl who moves to Detroit and misses her garden at her old home, but finds a way to make a garden right in the city of Detroit!  The authors' name is Keri Middaugh and the title of the book is My Detroit Garden.  Keri has graciously allowed me to use the photo of her book from her blog, My Kitchen My Vice, so that you may see it here:

If you live in the greater Detroit area (specifically Ann Arbor, or Ypsilanti) and you would like to be one of the first to see her new book - and have a chance to buy it - Keri (and her book) will be at Lunasa Open House Market at the Washtenaw Food Hub on Tuesday, May 8th and the Mix Marketplace in downtown Ypsilanti on Saturday, May 12. 

I am also excited that Keri will be visiting my preschool next week to read her new book to both my 3's and 4's class!  She will also be sharing about the process of writing a book and doing a seed planting activity with the kids!  I think the kids will be very excited to meet a real author!

 So, after two weeks of our seeds and plants theme, I am discovering (like I do every year) that I need to start earlier next year so that we can dig deeper (so to speak) into this theme.  After two weeks we still have not learned about the parts of a leaf or the parts of a flower - we have only learned about the parts of a seed, parts of a plant, and parts of a root.  However, I can say that we have had lots of fun and that the kids have really enjoyed learning about seeds and plants!  I guess that is the most important thing!

So, this week for our table project, we made a parts of a plant craft.  We glued on the seed and the roots the first day (the seed to show where all the parts are coming from), the stem and branches the next day, and the leaves and flower the last day.  Below are pictures of this project:

This is my example - we used a bean seed as our seed, yarn for the roots, tongue depressors for the stem, popsicle sticks for the branches, paper cut-outs for the leaves, and a black-line master shape for the flower.

Gluing on the roots

Gluing on the stem and branches

The kids did a really good job with these projects!  Each one looked different, but still had all of the parts of a plant in the correct places!

During the last couple weeks, several of the kids have gone to the art table and drawn or painted pictures of plants.  I am truly amazed at how much they have learned about the parts of a plant!  Here are some pictures of their art work:

 

Of course, we also had lots of work on the shelves that was related to a seed/plant theme!  Here are some pictures:

Scooping wooden flowers into plastic egg carton.  This work actually has a little story behind it. The wooden flowers were on top of wooden stems which also had leaves on them.  I bought them from The Scrap Box in Ann Arbor, which sells items from manufacturers, etc. that would normally be thrown away.  You can find lots of amazing things there to use for crafts, etc!  Anyways, these wooden flowers (with stem, and leaves) along with some purple wooden flowers were going to be used as a flower arranging work, but the flower tops and leaves would not stay connected to the stem.  So, I just took the tops and made a scooping work instead!

This work is from the KidsSoup member area.  The yellow pieces in the the center of the tray are the centers of flowers.  In each other section of the tray are the petals of the flowers.  You match the shape on the center piece to the shapes on the petal, put the shapes in order from largest to smallest around the center piece, and you have a flower!

This is also from the KidsSoup member area.  The first flower on the page has all it's parts.  But, every other flower is missing a part.  You use the crayons to add the missing part of each flower.

This is from Preschool Creations free garden pack.  There are addition problems using pictures of objects.  I laminated each sheet, added a dry erase marker, and a rag so that each child can do the work and then erase it for another child to use.

This is Sunflower Ketchup Cup Math from Making Learning Fun. 

These are Sunflower One-to-One Correspondence Math cards from Making Learning Fun.

These are word family flowers from the member area of  KidsSoup.  You put a flower on each stem and then find all of the leaves with pictures that rhyme with the picture on each flower.

These are all of the 3-part cards we have out right now - From left to right - recyclables, parts of a seed, parts of a plant, parts of a root.  The parts of a plant and parts of a root cards are free from Montessori Materials.  The parts of a seed cards are free from Montessori Workjobs.  And, the recyclables cards are free from Living Montessori Now.

Sunflower Seed addition from Making Learning Fun

This is not seed/plant related, obviously!  I was so excited to find some of those bath non-skid thingies with the suction cups on the bottom at a Mom 2 Mom sale a while back - for $0.25, I think!  I added some marbles and a small scoop to scoop the marbles onto the suction cups!

Here are some pictures of the kids working:

Sunflower Ketchup Cup Math game

Scooping marbles into suction cups

Somebody got out all of the knobless cylinders at the same time... uh oh!  Fortunately, a friend came a long to help sort them all back into their proper containers!

Hanging Bead Stair

Reading

Sunflower Seed additon

Garden addition with sandpaper numerals to help with writing numbers

Sunflower One-to-one Correspondence math mats

Mystery number

The kids discovered that in one of the books we read there was a hidden number on each page.  Here is a picture of one of the kids (with an assist parent) finding the hidden numbers in the book!

Because of all the seeds we planted last week, we had lots of dirt accidents this week.  In other words, there were containers of dirt all over the classroom with seeds planted in them and a few of them got knocked over.  Oh, and there was the container of mustard seeds that one of the kids opened in order to smell them - we ended up with mustard seeds all over the place that time!  So, I took advantage of the situation and gave a few practical life lessons on sweeping up dirt and seeds with a small broom and dustpan.  Below are a couple pictures of the kids cleaning up their messes:

Ooops!  Luckily baby food jars must be pretty strong, because we had several get knocked down and not one broke.  Of course, this does not help my cause when I am explaining to the kids that when you drop glass in breaks...

Mustard seeds are really difficult to sweep up!  And, even more difficult to pick up off the carpet!

 Living Montessori Now is having yet another amazing giveaway!  This one is for PearlMountian Image Converter Software! Check it out and enter every day to win one of 20 giveaways for this image conversion software!

So, that's it for today!  We are winding down at my preschool - our last day of school is May 18th!  I am still considering different ideas for what to blog about over the summer months.  I will be spending some time at my daughters Montessori school before she is done at the beginning of June, so that is one idea.  But, after that, I'm not sure yet.  I'd like to stay Montessori-focused.  I've thought of blogging about things I am going to add or change for next school year.  But, finding pictures to go along with these posts will take a little more doing since I won't be able to take many of my own without the help of my preschool kids.  We'll see what happens, I guess!  I am open to any ideas that any of my readers have, so leave me a comment if you have ideas about what I can blog about this summer that will be still Montessori-focused!

I am linking up with Living Montessori Now for Montessori Monday!

Earth Day: Part 3

As usual, at least at my school, there is always work on the shelves that is not related in any way to the theme for the week.  And, that is what I am going to post about today!

Pouring water with a funnel.  I've also used a larger pitcher than I have in the past - but the kids were able to handle it very well, even the younger ones!

Spooning rice and pouring with a teacup.

Tweezing spring erasers.

Geometric solids sorting cards extension from Chasing Cheerios.

Counting jewels into plastic egg carton.

Earth Counting book using the free printable offered by Living Montessori Now.

Sorting spring erasers.

Here are some pics of the kids at work:

Tongs with plastic Easter eggs.

Mystery Number - - small plastic eggs.

Sorting spring erasers.

Adding book from Karen Tyler's class through World Wide Montessori Online with colored bead stair.

Drawing.

He came up with his own pink tower/brown stair extension!

Check out what one of my 4's class kids wrote all by herself!  These are her clues for her show & tell.
It says, "It has pretty shoes.  It have pretty clothes."  I was totally blown away when her mom told me she had sounded out the words and written them all by herself!

Unfortunately, my supposedly "smart" phone neglected to upload most of my photos from last week automatically through Google + like it is set up to do.  So, I only have a fraction of the photos as I normally do - which is why there are not very many photos of the kids at work in this post...  oh well, it seems to be working again this week.  So, hopefully next week I will have more photos to post again!

If you are interested, please check out my Facebook page - also called Lesson Plans to Pots and Pans. I have started posting links to the ideas I find online on my FB page.  If you like what you see, please consider "liking" my page!

Montessori Monday: Washing Clothes & Walking the Line

Yesterday we took Froggy Boots to one of the parks near our house.  When I was a kid I had my own names for the different parks we went to.  I think when she gets older she will probably call this park Sandbox Park because there is a gigantic sandbox there.

Last time we went to Sandbox Park I came up with the idea to use Froggy Boots' little garden rake to make a "road" around the sandbox for her to walk on -- similar to the Montessori version, "walking the line."  Although she did walk on the "road" once, she wasn't to interested in it at that point.

However, when we returned to Sandbox Park yesterday, she asked me to make a "road" for her.  So, I did!  She walked on the "road" a couple times and then pushed her dump truck on it a few times.  She put quite a bit of effort into staying on the "road."  And, if she moved off of it, she quickly got herself back on track -- or, I guess, on "road."

Oh, and I'll add that when I told Froggy Boots that we were going to the park, she immediately went and put on her pumpkin hat and a necklace out of her play jewelry box and said, "I'm ready!  Let's Go!"  She also picked up her new purse to take with her.

Here are some pictures:

Walking the "road"

Walking the "road" with her truck.

Walking the "road" with her truck.

Yesterday I also made a trip to our local Value World thrift store.  While I was there I picked up a few preemie sized baby clothes for Froggy Boots to use with her baby dolls.  She has been very interested in taking clothes off and on her baby dolls recently.  But, all she had to choose from were some old doll clothes that were mine when I was little.  I thought some used baby clothes would be a cheap solution to this issue.

As an extension I planned a baby clothes washing practical life activity for today.  I'm glad I did!  It was perfect timing.  One of my friends from church happened to deliver her second baby today.  I met her and her husband at the hospital and picked up their little boy to come play at our house for the day until his grandparents arrived to stay with him.

This afternoon after nap and snack time, Froggy Boots, Little K and I headed outside to wash, rinse, and hang baby clothes (and a few dish towels thrown in there as well).  Froggy Boots ended up not being to interested in this activity at first -- she doesn't like bubbles (in water) and there were lots of bubbles in the washing tub.  But, after she watched Little K for a while, she joined in!

Little K really got into this activity!  After I showed him each step, he started right in!  He washed, squeezed and twisted the clothes, rinsed, squeezed and twisted the clothes again, and then hung the clothes on the clothesline with clothes pins like a real expert!

Here are some pictures (I've left Little K's face out of the pictures for privacy):

washing and rinsing tubs

Little K washing doll clothes.

Little K squeezing and twisting.

Little K rinsing doll clothes.

Little K hanging doll clothes on the line with clothespins.

Later, after watching Little K for a while, Foggy Boots joined in the activity.  She picked a baby hat and slowly started dipping it into the rinsing water tub.  She was still not interested in touching the bubbles in the washing tub.  After a while she was putting her hands right into the rinsing tub with the hat.  And, eventually she worked her way up to the washing tub -- bubbles and all!  I was so happy that she decided to give the bubbles a try!

Froggy Boots continued washing and rinsing the same baby hat for the entire time!  And then, when she was done, I helped her to hang the hat on the clothes line with a clothespin.

Froggy Boots gently dipping the hat into the rinse tub.

Froggy Boots dipping the hat into the bubbles!

Froggy Boots once she has become more comfortable with the activity.

The clothes line filled with baby clothes and dish towels!

I was so glad I planned this activity for today!  Little K really enjoyed it!  And, if he had not been here to do the activity with us, Froggy Boots might not have joined in.  Once she saw that Little K was washing the baby clothes in the bubbles, she probably realized that bubbles might not be as scary as she had previously thought.