Foods That Grow....

This morning the children were surprised to find lots of fruits and vegetables in the Touch and Feel pool.  Carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, apples, corn, celery, sweet potatoes, and onions to explore.  The kids were peeling and smelling and counting, all while wondering what we would be doing with this food.  What a fun way to begin our theme:  Foods That Grow!

Ms. Michele was back today with some fun ways to practice and build balance.  The kids each picked up a peg, then walked across a series of wiggly steps and bumpy circles, to get to the end, where they added their peg to the board.  All of our friends were a little reluctant to cross those wiggly steps by themselves.  They wanted to hold a hand.  We had to talk about going super slow and watching our feet instead of our friends....but there was significant improvement after several tries.   When it was time for messy finger fun, we headed over to the sidewalk to find a tub full of beans with all sorts of fall goodies hidden inside.  Some friends played in the beans, pouring and finding and dumping, while other friends played with Gak, a super slimy substance to pull and stretch.  It's hard to say which was the favorite, but overall messy finger fun is a big hit!

Today the book was Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert.  This is a story about planting a garden full of vegetables, picking those vegetables, and making them into soup.  The kids laughed when we asked if you could grow soup.....they all agreed you MAKE soup, not grow it!

 

Our language activity was about how some vegetables grow out of the ground and some grow under the ground.  We made a pretend Class Garden and named some things that we would want to grow.  Some plants grow on long vines, like pumpkins, while others grow on tall stalks, like corn.  Some grow under ground, like carrots and potatoes, and some grow really close to the ground, like lettuce.  Our class garden was colorful and full of good food!

 

 

We headed to the table for our super cool science:  making vegetable soup.  We had already washed all the vegetables from this morning, so the only thing left was to read the recipe and see which ones we needed and how many.  Following a recipe tells us the directions to make food that tastes good.  We checked the recipe and added all the right things in just the right amount.  The blender was really loud, but we had already talked about how it was OK to cover our ears if we needed to do that.  After  a few minutes, our soup was all mixed up and starting to get hot.  We poured it in cups and tasted it....well.....some of us tasted it.....and some of us said "no, thank you".  Either way, soup making was a fun experience!

 

 

Tomorrow....more about foods that grow.....at the grocery store!