- garden
- plant
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Language/L.PK.MA.5: With guidance and support from adults, explore word relationships and nuances of word meanings.
English Language Arts/Language/L.PK.MA.4: Ask and answer questions about the meanings of new words and phrases introduced through books, activities, and play.
Head Start Outcomes:
Language Development/Receptive Language: Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.
Language Development/Receptive Language: Comprehends increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.
Language Development/Receptive Language: Comprehends different grammatical structures or rules for using language.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Reading and Literature 7: Develop familiarity with the forms of alphabet letters, awareness of print, and letter forms.
Word Play: Gardening in My Garden
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
ELA Focus Skills: Fine Motor Skills, Word Recognition, Vocabulary
Tell children that some words can be used in different ways. Say, I will plant that plant in my garden. Explain that you used the word plant to describe what you were doing (planting) and to describe something (a plant).
Help children understand how words are used in different ways by giving them more sentences. You may want to have them try to complete the sentence. Say, Let’s try some more words. Finish these sentences with me.
- I will shovel the dirt with a ______. (shovel)
- I will rake the leaves with a ______. (rake)
- I will water the plants with ______. (water)
- I am going to garden in my ______. (garden)
Act out each action word with children as you say the sentence.
English Language Learners: Emphasize that the word garden is used in different ways. Hold up a picture of a person working in a bountiful garden, emphasizing that gardens can be small or large like the one in the picture. Point to the plants and tell children that it is a garden. Reiterate that a garden is a place where people grow flowers, vegetables, and plants. Now point to the person working in the garden and explain that the action a person does when he is working in a garden is called gardening. Say, The man is gardening in his garden.