The Watermelon Seed

This morning the Touch and Feel was full of artificial flowers.  They were all colors and the kids really enjoyed finding the different colors and making bouquets.

Because Ms. Gretchen was on vacation today, there was no music class.  Instead we decided to spend part of the time in free centers in the classroom, and part of the time on the playground.  We weren't sure that the weather was going to cooperate, but we braved the sprinkles anyway!

Our story today was The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli.  This is a story about an alligator who LOVES watermelon.  He eats it for every meal and for dessert.  But....when he accidentally eats a watermelon seed, he starts to worry that it will grow in his tummy.  He is nervous that vines will grow out his ears.  He decides never, ever to eat watermelon again!  When he burps up the watermelon seed, all his worries go away.....but he just can't stay away from watermelon!

 

The kids loved this book, laughing all the way through it!  The first thing we did was practice "burping" and saying "excuse me"....because in this class, we use good manners!  Then, we talked about the way a watermelon looks, green on the outside and red on the inside.  We drew a picture of how watermelons grow on long vines.  Many of the kids remembered seeing a watermelon at the grocery store yesterday.

 

 

For science, we had a taste test!  Each child got a piece of watermelon to taste.....some kids tasted three or four pieces.....and then we recorded on a chart whether we liked the watermelon or not.  We talked about how cold it was....and wondered what the green part would taste like....and thanks to the story.....were VERY careful not to eat any of those black seeds!

 

 

 

During art, we used some construction paper pieces to make our own watermelon slices.  They had to glue on the rind (the green part) and add some black seeds.  Even though the watermelon we tasted didn't have too many seeds, in fact we had to search to find any, the kids wanted to add LOTS of seeds to their watermelons.  Each one declaring...."we don't eat that part" every time!