Literature-Based Activity

Thought today I'd share an activity I did with my three 2 yr old classes and two 3 yr old classes. Those ages are not quite right at this point in the school year. My older 3s all turned 4 by March, and my oldest 2s were all 3 by March as well. But the school I teach at we call the kids by their age groups in September...not what age they currently are. Make sense? Okay...on my way to work each morning I pass by the most beautiful field of red flowers. They look like the poppy flower the veterans give out when you make a donation. I can't get a close enough picture of them to show here. I may drive by over the weekend and see if I can pull over to take a picture.

This past week some yellow flowers have started blooming as well. These flowers inspired me to bring out one of my favorite books :

After reading the story, we sang a cute song that I heard on an episode of Barney when my own kids were small. It's called "Five Little Butterflies." I made a flannel board set of butterflies and flowers for them to fly around.




The kids LOVE counting backwards for me as I "pick" the flowers off the board at the end of the song.







Our activity for the lesson was picking carrots from my carrot garden. I have a carrot pattern, probably came from a Mailbox Magazine at some point, that I copied on orange construction paper. I then wrote a numeral from 0 to 15 on each carrot & laminated them. Added cute little green toppers and instant carrot garden. I asked the kids to sit on the outside of the circle time rug, and scattered the carrots upside down in the "garden." Each child got a turn to pick a carrot, tell the class what numeral is on the carrot, then they replanted it. They had so much fun!!! Even my youngest students, who are all mid 2yo now, had fun picking carrots. If a student did not know the numeral, they were able to ask their class for help.

My oldest class had 15 students in attendance that day, so they each kept their carrot instead of replanting. They then lined them selves up in number order! I held the extra carrot to fill in the spot.








Edit: I tried to go this weekend and get a picture of the beautiful field but there was no where to pull over to get the shot. We decided to go into the public area and walk along the trails. I was hoping to find a way over to the fields but storms prevented us from getting that far. Only got a tiny bit wet on the way to the car! But I was able to find one lonely red flower along the way - I am sure this flower is what is making my drive such a beautiful one!