Random

I used individual cups as planters this years. I wrote each child's name on the cup with puffy paint, like last year. It makes it so much easier to send home for Spring Break!

I still love my thinking maps. I write the word "is" on each "arm," to help students with sentence structure.

I snuck a picture of another teacher's "Gambit" anchor chart. I loved it and need to make one!

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"Kindergarden" Sprouts

This year I used cups rather than a water table for planting. The children were able to take home their cups prior to spring break, complete with a little sign. I used puffy paint to write every student's name. Waterproofing was a must.


The sign reads, "I have sprouted in kinder'garden.'"


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Soil Simulation

We are growing another fabulous radish garden in kindergarten. Tomorrow we will watch the brainpopjr.com video on soil.



They know soil is food, so we used food and pretended it's soil.



We crushed up Oreos for dirt, added some gummy worms, and one m&m as a seed.



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Bubble Maps

We are in the process of moving, so pardon my bare walls. For our new bulletin board, we made flower bubble maps. The stem is the topic and the leaves are the describing words.











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A Plant's Needs

Today was our first day back from Spring Break. Last week, I only went in to my classroom once, to find our garden dead, of course. I decided not to discard the sad garden. Before break, the children and I talked about what a plant needs to grow and since our garden had no sunlight nor any water, I took this as a learning opportunity for the classes. We talked about why the plants died, what we could have done to prevent this, and the importance of sunlight and water. I gave the students a chance to feel the crunchy, shriveled up plants and we compared them to the soft, perky alive sprouts we once had. During recess, I wheeled the garden to our grassy area and dumped the plants out, where we touched the roots and discussed their job. Luckily, there were no tears over our "loss." (Sigh of relief.)

Our Garden

Here is our garden that we have been growing.

Another teacher brought over some ladybugs they had been observing and the kindergartners loved holding them and adding them to our garden.

Plants!

This week, we planted our own classroom garden in our water table. We have covered the life cycle of a plant and the parts of a plant, as well.

Our "Morning Message" was altered. I had the children stand up, pretend their feet were a plant's roots, their torso was the stem, their arms were the leaves, and faces were the flowers.

We worked very hard on large projects, showing a plant's needs.

Here's my example.

Here are some projects, showing the life cycle of a tree.

I hung them outside of our classroom.

We watched two FABULOUS www.brainpopjr.com videos:

1. Parts of a Plant

2. Life Cycle of a Plant

During recess, I roll our garden table outside to get some sun. The children are allowed to give each plant three sprays, then pass the bottle.

Here are the steps to making our Art Center project.

Above is my example for Art Center.

Day 3

We lacked sunshine for a few days.

Here is my post from our garden last year (and here and here).

Day 7

Our water table is now full of sprouts. They are getting so tall, some are falling over. The kids spray them during recess with a mister.

Quite the lush garden for Earth Week!

Day 4

We have about 7 sprouts or seedlings!

That was quick!

What's Sproutin' in KinderGARDEN?

Day 1

We planted radish seeds today. They don't grow into radishes, but they sprout a stem and leaves, and they are pretty sturdy (even when stuck in a water table). We have been discussing the parts of a plant and they are perfect for showing children the roots, stems, and leaves!