Creepy Carrots

I ran an afternoon program at the farm on Wednesday afternoon, which just happened to be Halloween.  It is funny to be gathering eggs and herbs and making mini frittatas with seven year olds on the biggest candy day of the year, but we succeeded!  I linked the holiday to the garden using a read-aloud of Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown.

While we were waiting for our eggs to cook, I prompted the children to draw their own scary vegetables.  They loved the prompt - and they began using alliteration to develop more scary vegetables, from scary sunflowers and terrifying tomatoes to zombie zucchini and lurking lettuce.

It had been a while since I was able to create a literacy prompt like this - and it was so engaging for the kids!  I hope to create a prompt like this every week of this program.

Do you have read-alouds that you love about nature or food?

Prompt : Saving Seeds

We saved garbanzo beans, bush beans, and calendula; next week it will be time for sunflowers!

The Seed Savers Exchange is the best resource I know of for learning more about this, and I encourage people to go ahead and try it, even if you don't consider yourself a gardener.  You'll be fascinated, and you cannot help but want to teach someone else about it.

Pins and Paper

The writing I'm doing for Turtlewings does have me thinking about paper!  Old-fashioned clothespins and a long piece of lace were a prompt in the corner of the room last week.

I've been on a kick of planning prompts for this area of the room that change daily or every few days.  These prompts have been combinations of materials that I think the children might find interesting, and combinations that they may not have experienced together.  I'll make a point of taking photos of some of the prompts and sharing them here.

We are definitely interested in ripping and cutting paper, so we have amassed quite a pile of little paper bits.  And as interesting as gluing can be, the novelty wears off.  All of the children made attempts at pinning paper to the line; the ones who were independently successful stayed and added paper for longer periods of time.  I thought the lace would provide a more visual cue than string for this prompt, and the old fashioned clothes pins don't require any squeezing; they do require some thickness from the objects you're attempting to hold, though!

We may have more success with something like this against a wall, where the lace won't flip upside-down.  I think that the possibilities for pinning things to a line are endless!  As long as the materials are appealing and the children can do it with some independence, it can be engaging.

round and round and round...which one?

This is another moment from Wednesday that made me stop and look.  The children were tracing cups onto a big sheet of paper, but F used the cups in his own way.  He engaged the other children at the table with this game for 10 minutes.  At the start, he had two cups, and he kept track of the red lego and would not life the cup if the guesser guessed correctly.  When the third cup was added, children guessed until the lego was found and then they all celebrated...then put the lego under a cup and did it over and over again.

I can't plan this.  I can provide open-ended materials, and I can make suggestions, but I honestly believe that I cannot predict what will be most meaningful.  I can think about helping to expand ideas; I can document and help children revisit their work and support them with time, materials, and other resources they might need.  It is more work than choosing a theme for the children and planning activities on that theme, but the results are rewarding for everyone involved!

a wipe-off board and a typewriter

More tools to encourage the exploration of writing through play, along with some of the things children are making with them.

I'm inspired by the post-it war in Paris.

I found the French site via lilla a, where the children are using post-its on windows, creating patterns and designs.  The material is open-ended if we think outside of the box and let children make the choices about how to use them.  That natural light of the window adds to the appeal, I think.

There is so much we can buy for children to use, and so many ways that they can be instructed to play. the simplest things go the distance, though.