C is for Carrots

C is for Carrot day!!!

• Taste Test Carrots
1. If you can, pick a carrot from the ground. Otherwise, buy all of them at the store.
2. Let your preschooler peel a long carrot. Be careful!
3. Adults: cut carrots lengthwise, slices, and baby carrots. Taste them, see if the different shapes make them taste different!

• Make Playdoh Carrots
1. With orange playdoh (or any color would work), roll it into a carrot like shape.
2. Use a plastic knife, or butter knife, and a cutting board to practice cutting carrots.
3. Repeat!

• Carrot Sensory Bin
1. I made polymer clay carrots (3 different sizes) and put them, along with carrot sprinkles, in a bin of kinetic sand.
2. Have your preschool find and sort the carrots according to size, line them up in rows, just like in a garden.
3. After counting how many carrots are in each row, use number cookie cutters to make imprints of the number they counted.

• Read Too Many Carrots, by Katy Hudson
1. I printed (and laminated) animals that are in the book – a bunny, beaver, bird, squirrel, and turtle. Then we talked about them and put them in order as they came up in the book. (They can play with these laminated animals in their sensory bin with the carrots too).

•  Carrot Counting
1. What you need:
• Orange paper
• Green paper
• Brown paper
• Scissors
• Glue stick
2. On the orange paper, draw triangles (in a zig zag) for your preschooler to cut. These will be the carrots.
• number each triangle, for the next part of the project.
3. Cut the green paper into strips. These are the green tops of the carrots.
4. Have your preschooler glue the orange triangles to the brown paper (the dirt), in order of number.
5. Whatever number is on the carrot, add that many green strips to the top (glue them on).

• Carrot ABC matching
1. Using the carrot sprinkles that you used in the sensory bin, write a letter of the alphabet on each carrot sprinkle. 
2. Using the ABC Carrot Printable from School Time Snippets.
3. As they find the carrot sprinkles in the sensory bin or just have them in a little bowl, match them ABC carrots.
• You could also use her printable carrots, or scrabble pieces, or any ABC letters.

**For more letter C preschool activities, click HERE.  

P is for Peas!

“Little Pea” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal is probably one of my favorite books. My kids love it, so we found a way to use it for preschool with all of our friends.

We enjoyed lots of fruits and veggies and of course, PEAS!

• Read “LMNO Peas” by Keith Baker … a very creative ABC book. Each page is covered with little pea characters doing things that start with each letter.
  1. Give the kids time to explore the pictures. They’re fun to look at.
  2. Point out the letters that start with one each of kid’s names. I was impressed that even our littlest friends could recognize their letter!

 

• Pea Dot Pictures
  1. After reading “LMNN Peas” I had the first letter of each of the kid’s names cut out for them. They love being able to recognize their own letter.
  2. Glue the cut-out letters to a blank paper.
  3. Use green pom poms (peas!) dipped in a little bit of green paint to make pea prints all over the page just like the book.

• Open Pea Pods! … when there’s a snack involved the kids are excited
  1. Give each of the kids a fresh pea pod.
  2. Encourage them to feel it, smell it, open it, count the peas inside and taste them!
  3. Tell them the next book is about a little pea!

• Read “Little Pea” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal … adorable story about Papa Pea, Mama Pea and Little Pea. Little Pea doesn’t like that he has to eat candy every night for dinner. He says yuck, blech, pleh to all five bites but can’t wait to see what is for dessert. The kids will be surprised!

  

• Fruits & Veggies Taste Test … a fun way to do snack time
  1. Cut up several different fruits & veggies into bite-sized pieces.
  2. Make up a simple chart to record “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it.” This is the chart we used (above) just click to print and write in the names of the foods you choose.
  3. Mark the chart any way you like. We used cute fruits & veggies stickers.
  4. Let the kids take turns choosing which food they’d like to try.
  5. Taste it, then decide if they like it or don’t like it.

• How a Pea Grows video … this is a fun time-lapse video of a pea seed growing.

 

• Plant a Pea Seed
1. Spread newspaper over the table.
2. Pour soil into a large bowl & have spoons ready.
3. Give each of the kids a small paper cup.
4. Let them scoop soil into their cup.
5. Using their finger, make a hole in the soil.
6. Drop 2-3 pea seeds in the hole and cover.
7. Spritz with water and set in a sunny window. Peas like water so don’t let them get dry!

Vegetables

• Read "Growing Vegetable Soup" by Lois Ehlert. Available here.
• Before you read …
  1. Draw a large pot on a large piece of paper.
  2. Name the ingredients they would put in the pot to make vegetable soup.
  3. Write or draw their responses in the pot.
  4. Challenge the kids to see if their suggestions are any of the ingredients used in the book.
• After you read … 
  1. Place real or plastic vegetables next to a large soup pot.
  2. Give the kids a ladle.
  3. Let them choose a veggie, name it and drop it in the pot. Repeat the rhyme below.

Put the [corn] in our soup pot.

Let it simmer till it's hot!

[Corn] is oh so good for you.

Stir until the soup is through!

• Read “Veggie Soup“ by Dorothy Donohue. Available here.
  1. This is one of my favorite vegetable books. I love looking at her illustrations. They are done with cut paper and are pretty amazing.
  2. This is kind of a silly story and it has a Veggie Soup recipe at the end. My 5-year-old wanted to make it, so one night he helped me make it for dinner. It was actually delicious … and a great lesson on vegetables!
• Vegetable Prints … Paint with vegetables!
  1. Cut a variety of vegetables
  2. Dip them in a tray of shallow paint and see the cool prints they make!
  3. Suggestions:
     • Asparagus tops
     • Corn on the cob (dip in paint, then roll!)
     • potato prints (cut in half and carve designs in the cut side)
     • carrots (cut off the tip and make carrot dots, then dip the green leafy part and paint with that!)
     • Celery (cut one end, then dip in paint and stamp C shapes)
     • Bell Peppers (cut in half and dip)

 

• Saving Vegetable Seeds … These are so cute I did a separate post. Click here to see it!

Snack Idea: Vegetable Counting Recipe

1. For each of the kids, have 1 broccoli floret, 2 celery sticks, 3 cucumber slices, and 4 carrot sticks … and a bowl of dip!
2. Print the simple recipe card above & let them follow the directions to get their snack!

Vegetable Seed Packets

Okay, these are seriously cute. I can’t believe how amazingly creative some people are! These free, printable seed packets are available at Keeping Life Creative.

   

I wanted to post this now so that all of you with vegetable gardens producing this summer can start saving and drying your seeds. We usually don’t make it to V week until the beginning of March … which is PERFECT to start thinking about your garden and wah-lah! You’ll already have several seeds to plant!

1. Go here to download these seed packets (she has more than just carrots, peas and tomatoes)
2. Unzip and print on cardstock or regular paper.
3. Fold and glue the flaps together. Leaving the top flap open.
4. Add googly to your veggies (probably my favorite part!)
5. Once your seeds are dry, slip them inside the packets and save until next spring!

I also love this idea to make additional packets from Mama Jenn…

1. Trace the packet pattern onto scrapbook paper
2. Add a blank, white rectangle to the front.
3. Have the kids draw a picture and label other seeds you will be saving!

TIP: Check out this website to find great information on saving different types of seeds.