- brown pipe cleaners
- felt carrots and onions
- felt petals, leaves, and stems
- glue
- green, brown, and white yarn
- large sheet of clear contact paper
- long brown string or ribbon
- garden
- tunnel
- worm
MA Standards:
English Language Arts/Writing/W.PK.MA.2 Use a combination of dictating and drawing to explain information about a topic.
English Language Arts/Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.5 Create representations of experiences or stories (e.g., drawings, constructions with blocks or other materials, clay models) and explain them to others.
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 STE Standards:
Life Sciences/From Molecules to Organisms: Inheritance and Variation of Traits/LS1/3.A Describe/draw and compare the body parts of animals (including themselves) and plants they are investigating [System] and explain functions of some of the observable body parts. [Structure and Function]
Head Start Outcomes:
Literacy Knowledge/Early Writing Uses scribbles, shapes, pictures, and letters to represent objects, stories, experiences, or ideas.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
Logic and Reasoning/Symbolic Representation Represents people, places, or things through drawings, movement, and three-dimensional objects.
English Language Arts/Composition 16 Use their own words or illustrations to describe their experiences, tell imaginative stories, or communicate information about a topic of interest.
Inside-Out Window Garden
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
Skill Focus: Creative Expression, Fine Motor Skills, Vocabulary
Educator Prep: Before beginning the activity cut out felt shapes: leaves, stems, flower petals, carrots, carrot leaves, onions, etc.
Tell children they are going to create a pretend window vegetable garden for the room. Have children touch the sticky paper so they understand how things will stick to the paper and realize they must be careful about where they place things.
- Place the contact paper sticky-side up and tape down the edges. Put a thick piece of brown ribbon across the paper and tell children it is the soil line. Demonstrate making a bean plant with felt petals, stem, and leaves.
- Put a dab of glue on each piece before placing it above the dirt line.
- Then tell children you are going to put some roots below the dirt line. Use green, brown, and white yarn for the roots and place them on the contact paper under the plant.
- Encourage children to place roots, seeds, grass clippings, leaves, etc., below the dirt line and to use the pipe cleaners to make worms in the dirt.
- Encourage children to draw illustrations of a sun, tunnels, raindrops, etc. Then help children cut out the illustrations and stick them on the garden.
Hang the garden in a window so it can be enjoyed both inside and out!