Mother Goose Time- Planting Seeds and Worm Painting

Planting Seeds

The girls loved learning about planting their own seeds and watching the seeds grow into plants.

This week we learned about soil, seed, sun, water, roots and worms.

Here are some highlights from our week and our favorite lesson plans you can feel free to use, too.

 

Although this lesson has been designed for preschool, this is also exactly what 2nd grade children learn for life cycles of plants! (I was a K-2nd grade teacher.) So, this worked out perfect to use with both of my daughters (ages 3 and 8).

 

Mother Goose Time included the following to help us get started with planting:

• soil
• seeds
• Growing a Garden Observation Record (pictured above)

You will also need:

• Spray bottle filled with water for daily watering

 We put their little pots right on the breakfast nook table, and every morning the girls loved to water their plants. The grass grew very quickly.

 

We ended up adding the soil and grass seeds to the Experience God (supplemental add-on) pots the girls made that their little beans were growing in.

 

These pots are prettier and the girls had decorated them. So, they have two types of seeds growing in the pot, a bean and grass seed.

 

The sunny garden journals were beautiful! The girls loved sitting in front of their potted plants and writing in their journals.

 

I noticed that our 3-year-old daughter drew a picture that turned out great! For some reason, she was not happy with it, so she scribbled all over it. It seems like that is pretty typical for that age. I've worked with a lot of preschool through kindergarten-age children, and it seems to get better towards the end of Kindergarten.

 

It must be very challenging to develop strong fine motor skills while coloring, and it can be frustrating for young children who are trying to express themselves and get their little hands to create what their minds are thinking.

 

I typically like to hurry and pick up the work my preschooler has completed before she stares at it and decides she doesn't like it, and then proceeds to scribble over the top of it. Her older sister used to rip it up, not just scribble over the top of it. :) Fortunately, it seems that this acting out of frustration ends at just about when they develop stronger fine motor skills.

Worm Painting

 

I was so disgusted when I saw a teacher using real worms for the children to paint! I can't remember if this was for Kindergarten or First Grade. This was years ago. I do know that the teacher had the children gently wash the worms and put them back into the school garden when they were done.  I was surprised to see plastic, very realistic looking worms inside our Mother Goose Time daily lesson plan kit. I was thankful that these were just plastic, and not real. :) Thank you, Mother Goose Time.

 

Here are our worm paintings. The girls dipped the plastic worms into the paint and rolled them onto the paper. The process created interesting patterns. They enjoyed the process of creating their own designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the girls were done with their worm paintings, they decided to wash the plastic, pretend worms and put them into their pots with their growing seeds. They liked to pretend that the worms were making their home inside the pots, next to their growing plants.

 

I'll share more free lesson plans with you soon. Next time, we will learn about watching gardens grow: sprout and stem, leaves, flowers, produce and weeds.

 

I'll also share a fun Mother Goose Time Experience God lesson plan, which is an add-on. This lesson is about the farmer who planted seeds, and how those seeds are like the word of God in our lives... I'll give you the posters and script to read, along with a fun planting activity to illustrate how seeds grow when they are taken care of properly. Where we decide to plant those seeds surely makes a difference in how the seeds grow.