Garden!

The Plan

Books

A Closer Look by Mary McCarthy
Maisy Grows a Garden by Lucy Cousins
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
Rah Rah Radishes by April Pulley Sayre

Extension Activities

Flannelboard: “Lunch”

Finger Puppets: “Ten Little Flowers”
One little, two little, three little flowers
Four little, five little, six little flowers
Seven little, eight little, nine little flowers
Ten flowers in the garden
Credit: Modified from Childhood

Action Rhyme: “Dig a Little Hole”
Dig a little hole(dig)
Plant a little seed (drop seed)
Pour a little water (pour)
Pull a little weed (pull up and throw away)
Chase a little bug (chasing motion)
Heigh-ho, there he goes! (shade eyes)
Give a little sunshine (make a sun)
Grow a little rose (smell flower, eyes closed)
Credit: SurLaLune Storytime

Puppets: “There’s Something In My Garden”
There’s something in my garden, now what can it be?
There’s something in my garden that I can’t really see
Hear its funny sound…
A [ANIMAL] is what I found!
Credit: SurLaLune Storytime

Craft

This was a pre-packaged craft that I got at Michaels last summer. It had different kinds of flowers in it, but I chose the daisy since daisies are the friendliest flowers. (Points if you got that reference!) It was an okay craft, we did need to pull out glue dots since it wasn’t self-adhesive.

How It Went

Thursday morning
“Something In My Garden” is a magical, magical rhyme. The kids wait with baited breath until the animals come out and surprise them. This was a great theme for the CSLP 2013 Summer Reading theme, “Dig Into Reading!” and the kids this morning really enjoyed both “Planting a Rainbow” and “Maisy Grows a Garden.” Garden!

Friday morning
“Maisy Grows a Garden” was the hit of this group. They were so, so excited to watch me pull the tabs and let the pop-ups loose. I had the kids clap the beat of “Rah Rah Radishes” in this group as I read since they were pretty wiggly throughout the whole storytime. I’m not sure I would recommend that to everyone, as I have a super loud voice and it’s not a problem for me to talk over a group of thirty clapping along, but it was so fun!