Playing with Dirt

We started our gardening unit today, learning about soil and seeds.  The girls loved playing with the included pattern blocks, making little "garden" rows of shapes and then stacking them to make castles (because who doesn't want a castle with a fairy tale garden?).  It was a little hard to transition to the next activity because they had so much fun with the blocks so they will probably be pulled out for Miss M on a regular basis outside of school.

They practiced writing in dirt.  I've seen this done with salt before but this was a first for me.  I had a bag of potting soil so I put some in our beloved IKEA plates.  Since they have nice high sides, it worked well to contain overspill and they each had their own to write in (we sometimes have a hard time sharing still...). It was also a very nice morning so we moved outdoors for this activity and they seemed to like the change of scenery.  They used plastic spoons (also from IKEA, love that place) to write their first initials, then patted it smooth and started again.  I wrote their names on the provided name tags with dry erase crayon so they would have a model to look at.  When they were done with that, I simply dumped the soil into my as yet unfilled pots on the patio.  They spent a little time tracing their names with a different color of crayon and then we moved on to actually planting our seeds.

Miss M and I planted peas a few weeks ago and a watermelon last week that is just poking its leaves about the soil and Miss H planted peas and strawberries at her house so they've both had some exposure to seeds and gardening.  We looked at the little plants and talked about where they were planted and what they needed to grow, then they filled their little pots with soil, sprinkled on some grass seed and enjoyed watering them (hopefully not too much...I guess we will find out).  It should be fun for them to watch the seeds sprout over the next couple of weeks.

Both girls really enjoyed the Jack and the Beanstalk story.  I used my flannel board and just put double sided sticky tape on the back of the laminated story pieces.  They took turns adding and removing  pieces as directed.  This was another fun activity that will probably make it into our daily play area.

I had planned on making snack with apples, peppers and peas so they could see the seeds inside but I gave my husband the last apple for his lunch this morning and the peppers were not as perky as I remembered them being so we settled for peeling open sugar snap peas and talking about how they were actually eating seeds.

While I prepared the snack, they drew pictures of themselves in their gardens, glued on pictures I cut out of magazines to add flowers and trees and then had some fun framing themselves before finishing off their masterpieces.

If the weather holds up, I hope to take Miss M and Littlest to the tulip festival a few towns north of here tomorrow.  I love being able to find ways to bring what we are learning in school to other areas of our life.  This is so important in helping to cement information and make it truly relevant.