- paper medals
- sheet or blanket
- string
- grow
- plant
- soil
- worm
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
English Language Arts/Language/L.PK.MA.6: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, listening to books read aloud, activities, and play.
MA Draft Standards:
Life Sciences/Ecosystems; Biological Evolution/LS2/4.B: Using their experiences in the local environment and other evidence, raise and discuss questions about the basic needs of familiar organisms and how they might meet their needs. (Clarification statement: basic needs include water, food, air, shelter, and light for most plants)
Head Start Outcomes:
Logic and Reasoning/Symbolic Representation: Engages in pretend play and acts out roles.
Language Development/Receptive Language: Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Language 2: Participate actively in discussions, listen to the ideas of others, and ask and answer relevant questions.
Talk Together: Get the Soil Ready
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
STEM Key Concepts: Plants get their needs met from the environment (their habitat); Some plant parts are below the ground and some above; Earthworms are animals that live in the soil, underground
ELA Focus Skills: Gross Motor Skills, Listening and Speaking, Vocabulary
Educator Prep: Create “Wonderful Worm” medals from construction paper for each child before the activity.
Review what plants need from the soil in order to grow. Prompt children to talk about how worms help the garden and how they stretch and squeeze to make tunnels in the dirt. Explain to children that you are going to read a story about a family that plants a vegetable garden. Say, But first we are going to be underground gardeners and get the soil ready for them.
Create a tunnel by draping a sheet over a table. Point under the table and tell children that this is the underground. Explain that they are going to wiggle their way through the soil and get it ready for the gardeners to plant.
- Say, Start wiggling! Guide children one at a time to “worm” their way through the tunnel.
- Have children take turns.
- Give out “Wonderful Worm” medals for the longest stretch, the shortest squeeze, the wiggliest wiggle, the quickest wiggle, and so on.
- Make sure that every child receives a medal.
- Say, Now, the soil is ready. Let’s read about the vegetable garden!