Materials
tubs or bins large enough to hold bathwater and babies
towels
baby dolls (not cloth)
soap
washcloths
Instructions
1. Read In a Garden to the children. Set up a garden in your house area.
2. Fill two cardboard boxes with brown shredded paper to represent dirt.
Put plastic vegetables in the shredded paper according to how they
grow naturally. For example, carrots and turnips should go under the
"dirt" with only their tops showing, potatoes go all the way under the
dirt, and lettuce sits on top. Continue until you have planted all the
vegetables. Split them equally between the boxes.
3. Attach a short length of string to each fruit. Tie all the fruit to a fake tree.
To save space, tell the children that this is a
magical tree in the garden upon
which all sorts of fruit grows!
4. Put plastic gardening tools
and gardening clothes in the
house area. Let the children
freely explore the "garden"
during center time.
Encourage them to dig up
the vegetables and pick the
fruit from the tree.
5. As the children play, talk to
them about what they are
doing. Encourage them to
work together in the garden
and to prepare meals for each
other with the foods they have
harvested.
6. Occasionally, gather the vegetables
and re-plant them and re-hang the fruit
so other children can enjoy the activity.
Math: Ask the children to sort the veggies by how they grow: aMboovree gtoro dunod or
below. Create a graph with two headings "Above ground" and "Below ground."
Snack: Make vegetable soup. Enlist a parent to provide a recipe for homemade
vegetable soup. Ask each child to bring in an ingredient for the soup. Let the
children work together to prepare the veggies for cooking. (Make sure
everyone has clean hands!) Add the ingredients to a crock pot and set it to
simmer for the day. Enjoy your veggie soup!
More Snack: Make fruit salad. Ask each child to bring in piece of fruit. Give the
children plastic knives and let them help prepare the fruit. Mix all the fruit
together and enjoy!
