Tot School: Plants

Well it’s March which means we are thinking spring thoughts here is Wisconsin and hoping for warmer days soon.  So although it is too early to do any planting outside, we decided to start learning about plants so we’re ready to head outside as soon as we get a taste of warm spring air.

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  Here were our plans for Plants week:

  And here are the details of each activity:

Parts of Plants SeriesPlanting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
  Gardens Series by Mary Schuh
Carrots Grow Underground by Mary Schuh
Once There Was a Seed by Judith Anderson and Mike Gordon

  I had way too many great plant books to just pick 5 for this week, so I went with a few of my favorite series.

Counting Flowers:

  To add a little counting practice to our fine motor activities this week I made these number flowers. I glued a mini cupcake liner to a stick and folded a few extra liners to create the leaves. Next I numbered the flowers from 1-10. Finally I gave Madelynn a pile of mini pom pom “pollen” to add to each flower. She counted them out one at a time as she grabbed them with the tongs.

Build a Flower:

  I am so glad Madelynn is becoming a pro with a glue stick, because I have TONS of foam shapes laying around that are not stickers. I’m not sure why I thought they were a good idea, but they are coming in handy now for art projects! I sorted out some shapes and colors into cups for her to use as flower parts. We used the book Planting a Rainbow as inspiration for building flowers.

Flower Necklaces:

  This flower bead threading activity was super easy with this Flower Power Bead Kit from Melissa & Doug. Its no secret I love all things Melissa & Doug and this kit is no exception. I love that it is made for little hands with the string that is similar to a shoelace with an extra long plastic aglet to push through the beads without it fraying.

Sticky Window Flowers:

  Something about light shining through sticky window activities just makes me smile every time.  For this flower garden, I taped up a sheet of contact paper (sticky side out), gave Madelynn a container with the leftover foam shapes from our gluing activity, and let her create away! The best thing about using foam vs. paper? It is easy to remove, reposition, and reuse the pieces!

Flower ABC Match:

  I made this little flower match activity with uppercase letters on the flower centers, and lowercase letters on petals. Then I taped the petals to mini clothespins for Madelynn to attach to the flowers.

Flower Number Hunt:

We love our scavenger hunts! First, I printed themed cards with the numbers 1-10. Next, I hid them all over the house. Then I gave Madelynn a clipboard, recording sheet and some crayons and sent her off to find the first card. We are working on number recognition, so after finding a card Madelynn would tell me the number, then color it on her paper. 
To spice things up I gave Madelynn a different action to do as she searched for her next card. My favorites? Fly like a bird, crawl like a turtle, gallop like a horse, run like a cheetah, slither like a snake, walk like a bear, tiptoe like a ballerina, and hop like a rabbit. This definitely helped to get a little extra energy out and prevented her from just slowly walking to each new card. I created different levels of response sheets to practice counting sets and writing numbers as well. If you’d like a copy you can grab them here.

Nature Walk Checklist:

We tried really hard to get outside this week, despite it being a bit cold and windy. Aubrey’s been fighting a cold, and I didn’t want to make her come out with us, so while she napped we improvised with a backyard nature walk. Madelynn was able to find most of the items on our checklist and loved finding and coloring each one.

Flower Hop Memory:

This was a fun new game we tried out this week. First, I drew 6 different colored flowers on the ground and had Madelynn help color them. Then, I named a color for her to jump on..”pink.” Next, I named another color to jump on, adding on to the previous color… “pink, then purple.” Finally we continued to add colors in the sequence to practice following multi step directions…”pink, then purple, then yellow, etc.”

 Seed Toss:

  For this easy game I set up a medium sized pot on one side of the room and a pile of bean bag “seeds.” Madelynn tried to toss the seeds into the pot from a few feet away. I also had her count how many she got in each time, then try to beat her score.

 Seed Letter Hunt:

  And finally we added an alphabet scavenger hunt to finish up our gross motor activities for the week. First, I printed letter seed cards with uppercase letters. Next, I hid them all over the house. Then I gave Madelynn a clipboard, recording sheet and some crayons and sent her off to find the first card. For a bit of a challenge I printed the lowercase letters on her recording sheet so she had to match upper to lowercase letters.

Plant Theme Snacks:

Fruit Flowers – We built these fruit flowers with green grapes, strawberries, pineapples, clementines, and a blackberry.
  Veggie Flowers – We built these veggie flowers from celery, cucumbers and orange peppers. I used small flower shaped fondant cutters to punch out the shapes.
  Flower Pancakes – To make these fun pancakes, I sprayed a cookie cutter with cooking spray then placed it on a preheated griddle. I poured pancake batter inside to fill the flower shape, waited 1 minute then removed the cookie cutter.  After the pancake was brown I flipped it to cook the other side. Then I topped each one with banana slices and blueberries to decorate the flowers.
  Flower Pattern Snack – I found these fun flower shaped marshmallows at Target this week so I added them in as an easy patterning snack this week.   Candy Flowers – First I melted white candy melt in the microwave. Next I laid 4 pretzels in a flower shape on waxed paper. I poured the melted candy on top of the pretzels and pushed them all in towards the center. Next I placed pink and purple M&M candy on top of the candy to make flowers.  After the candy set, I removed each flower from the waxed paper and added a green candy cane stem.

Flower Play Dough Tray:

  Play dough trays are always a hit around here. On this tray: yellow, pink, and purple play dough, pipe cleaner stems, leaf sequins, colored sequins, colored gems, and flower fondant cutters

Planting Flowers Bin:

  In this bin: black beans, fake grass, plastic/silk flowers, cups and this AWESOME flower shaped cake pop maker I found to use as a fine motor tool

Build a Garden Bin:

  In this bin: split peas and this adorable garden playset (I admit the quality on this toy isn’t the best, but it was relatively cheap and Madelynn LOVES it)

Planting Carrots Bin:

In this bin: split peas, carrot easter eggs, fine motor tools, and boxes

Dig & Play Sensory Bin: 

In this bin: dirt, pots, shovels, silk flowers, pom pom “seeds”

Want all of this week’s Plants activities for tot school?  You can grab them here:
On my site : Plants Plans & Printables On TpT: Plants Plans & Printables

Or you can grab our entire year of themes and plans:
On my site here: Tot School Bundle On TpT here: Tot School Bundle

Then check out the rest of our 35+ themes on the Tot School Curriculum Main Page.