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The Garden Project Journal of Observation

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Contents The Garden Project adopts a multidisciplinary project-based approach to learning. Activities under Next Steps give you ideas of how you can extend learning! Activity Name

Lesson

Early Learning

Next Steps

Page

Unit 1 – Preparing Muddy Puddles

Lesson 1

Social & Emotional: I can explore how I feel about the rain, jumping in puddles, and getting wet.

I understand how different types of weather make me feel.

Season’s Palette

Lesson 1

My World: I can observe the different shades of colors in my immediate natural environment.

I can represent trees in different shades of green and/or colors I observe.

Outside My Window

Lesson 1

My World: I can identify clues in my natural environment and describe trees based on the season we’re in.

I can use one environmental clue to describe how the season will progress and/or change.

What’s the Weather like?

Lesson 1

My World: I can identify six types of weather.

I can observe and talk about five types of weather in my environment.

Leaf Edges

Lesson 2

My World: I recognize three types of leaf edges and notice that leaves can be grouped by their edge-type. Expressive Arts: I use rubbings to explore leaf edges.

I use different techniques such as rubbings, stenciling and/or printing to explore parts of a leaf.

Leaf Parts

Lesson 2

My World: I can observe plants as living organisms and identify three parts of a leaf.

I can use a magnifying glass to observe leaves from close-up.

Patterns of Leaves

Lesson 2

My World: I can recognize a pattern.

I can reproduce a pattern with guidance, with natural materials such as leaves or stones on paper.

12-13

Spill the Beans

Lesson 3

Expressive Arts: I can create a composition using “repetition”, a technique used by many conceptual artists, with one or two types of bean repeated around the rectangle.

I can vary my composition by adopting a pattern, a combination of elements or shapes repeated in a recurring and regular arrangement.

14-15

A, B, Seeds!

Lesson 3

Early Numeracy: I can count the beans and observe their differences in size on my bean graph

I can name the beans on my graph.

16-17

Unit 2 - Planting Lesson 1

Expressive Arts: I can safely explore a variety of materials, tools, and techniques. I like to experiment painting with different textures.

I experiment painting with other natural materials that give off color, such as with fruits and vegetables that have natural dye.

My Companion Plants

Lesson 2

Social & Emotional: I understand that plants have friends too, as they like to be planted next to some plants and not next to others.

I can make one or two plant combinations based on their friendships (companions).

Little Green Heads

Lesson 3

My World: I understand that a plant grows from a seed and needs soil or compost, water, sunshine, and care for it to grow.

I can sprout a plant from a seed.

Busy Bees

Lesson 4

My World: I understand that flowers attract bees to a garden.

I understand that bees are needed in order for some fruit and vegetables to grow.

Friends of the Garden

Lesson 4

Art: I can cut out and glue the ladybugs and bees along the dotted lines.

I recognize bees and ladybugs as insects that are friends of my garden.

Mud Drawings

Unit 3 – Growing Let It Rain!

Lesson 1

Art: I can adopt a simple art technique called pointillism to represent rain on paper. My World: I recognize the signs of when a plant needs water.

Observing a Life Cycle

Lesson 2

My World: I observe the changes that occur in a sprouting seed.

I can order the stages of a sprouting seed.

Lesson 3

Early Numeracy: I recognize and create shapes with fruit and vegetables and explore their characteristics using mathematical language to describe them.

I can combine fruit and vegetable shapes to make more complex shapes or designs (for example, making a vegetable stamp mandala).

Lesson 4

Early Numeracy: I understand vegetables can be cut into two equal parts that are very similar to each other (symmetry) and their shape changes according to how they are cut.

I notice that many fruit or vegetables cut horizontally (widthwise) tend to be circular.

Triangles and Circles and Squares… Oh My!

Symmetrical Onions

I can experiment with different shades of blue or color to create depth in my drawing.

Unit 4 – Harvesting Developing My Sense of Taste

Lesson 2

My World: I can identify two types of taste sensations: sweet and sour.

I can recognize four fruits or vegetables by taste.

Fruit and Vegetable Color Wheel

Lesson 3

Healthy Habits: I understand that there are five main fruit/vegetable color groups: red, yellow/orange, white/brown, green, and blue/purple. Expressive Arts: I can group pictures and cut-outs of fruit and vegetable by color.

I can categorize most fruit and vegetables into the five main color groups.

My Favorite Recipe

Lesson 4

Expressive Arts: I can represent a seasonal recipe using images or pictures.

I can exchange my favorite recipe with my friends.

Unit 5 – Decomposing and Regenerating Regrown Plants

Super Seed Observation

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Language Development: I can apply key vocabulary to explain how to regrow a carrot from a carrot top.

I can apply this activity to the regrowth of another root vegetable, like a parsnip.

My World: I understand that seeds are stored in many fruits’ center and seeds are the plant’s way to start its life again.

I notice that some seeds can be stored in different parts, such as on the fruit’s skin, like in strawberries. Vegetable parts, such as stems, roots or bulbs, don’t contain seeds.

Support Documentation Pages The Sensory Page is used to record and document things we have heard, seen, tasted, smelled, or touched during The Garden Project.

New Vocabulary

Language Development: I recognize the fruit and vegetables we planted and can mime the key action words used throughout the project (for example, mix, plant, water, grow). I know at least five colors and can name six vegetables.

Specialized Science & Nature Skills Assessment

The assessment page is used to highlight science and nature skills that have been developed during the project.

Bees and Ladybugs Cut-Outs

To be used with Friends of The Garden on page 22.

Seasonal Fruit and Vegetable Cut-Outs

To be used with Fruit and Vegetable Color Wheel on page 28.

Sensory Page

I can use these words to answer simple questions about The Garden Project.

> Lesson 2

Leaf Edges Leaf edges can be smooth, toothed or even lobed. Finish the leaves below by finding 3 different types of leaves and rubbing the corresponding leaf edge with charcoal

Smooth

Toothed

Lobed

> EARLY LEARNING My World: I recognize three types of leaf edges and notice that leaves can be grouped by their edge-type. Expressive Arts: I use rubbings to explore leaf edges.

Next step: I use different techniques such as rubbings, stenciling and/or printing to explore parts of a leaf.

> Lesson 2

Leaf Parts There are so many different types of leaves, yet they almost all have the same parts. Complete the leaf below by pressing a leaf on an ink pad and printing it inside the dotted leaf. tip

midrib

petiole

> EARLY LEARNING My World: I can observe plants as living organisms and identify three parts of a leaf. Next step: I can use a magnifying glass to observe leaves from close-up.

> Lesson 4

Symmetrical Onions Onions can be cut into two equal parts, horizontally (widthwise) or vertically (lengthwise). Complete the two onions below with their other half.

horizontal

vertical

> EARLY LEARNING Early Numeracy: I understand vegetables can be cut into two equal parts that are very similar to each other (symmetry) and their shape changes according to how they are cut.

Next step: I notice that many fruit or vegetables cut horizontally (widthwise) tend to be circular.

> Lesson 2

Developing My Sense of Taste Draw the fruit/vegetable you tasted next to its taste sensation. What color do you think of when tasting it? Sweet:

Sour:

Color association:

> EARLY LEARNING My World: I can identify two types of taste sensations: sweet and sour.

Next step: I can recognize four fruits or vegetables by taste.

Specialized Science & Nature Skills Assessment Use these statements to assess the hands-on science and nature skills that have been developed during the project. EQUIPMENT SKILLS

HARVESTING SKILLS

I can use a watering can to water plants

I can dig root crops, such as carrots and radishes, without damaging them

I can use a measuring stick to measure plant growth

I can harvest leafy crops, such as lettuce and spinach, without damaging the plant

PLANTING SKILLS

OTHER SKILLS

I can sow large seeds such as lima beans

I can conduct hand texturing tests of soil to determine soil type

I can sow medium seeds such as spinach

I can sow small seeds such as radish seeds

I can sow fine seeds such as tomatoes, coriander, and lettuce

I can distinguish sweet from sour

I can fill a container ready for sowing

I can observe the changes in plants, fruits, and vegetables

I can fill a cup with soil

PLANNING SKILLS

I can remove a young plant from its container

I can draw my garden plan

I can plant a young plant into the soil and firm in

I can choose plants to grow

AFTER-CARE SKILLS

RE-PLANTING SKILLS

I can water seedlings

I can start my new vegetable garden by extracting seeds from harvested vegetables and storing them to plant the following year.

I can water established plants I can pinch out plants such as sweet peas, broad beans, and tomatoes Teacherâ€™s comments

Bees and Ladybugs Cut-Outs Use with Friends of the Garden on page 22.