Author: pcolema

Pre-K Plants

Content Area: Science (with art)

TEA Pre-K Guidelines:

VI.B.3. Child recognizes, observes, and discusses the relationship of organisms to their environments.
The child: observes, discusses, and records seasonal changes in the neighborhood trees and organisms.

VI.C.1 Child identifies, compares, discusses earth materials and their properties and uses.
The child: identifies the importance of soil, sunlight, air, and water to plant growth.

VIII.A.1 Child uses a variety of art materials and activities for sensory experience and exploration.
The child: creates artwork inspired by music.

VIII.B.1 Child participates in classroom music activities.
The child: sings about concepts learned in the curriculum (singing about planting seeds when the theme is gardening, transportation songs, etc.).

Song:

I Plant A Seed
(Sung to: I’m a Little Teapot)

I plant a little seed in the cold, cold ground.
Out comes the yellow sun, big and round.
Down come the raindrops soft and slowly
Up comes the flower grow, grow, grow!

Found at: http://www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/spring/songs.htm

Video Info: Plant a Little Seed Song
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTm_roXBaU8

I chose to focus on gardening and the cycle a seed goes through to become a plant. In pre-k students learn about the world around them and plant growth is something they focus on. I chose to incorporate some of the art curriculum into the lesson by teaching about the cycle through the song, “I Plant a Seed”, which is sung to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”. This song can be sung using kinesthetic movements that help the children to get into the song and make sense of the words and the life cycle of a seed. It would be good to also read a picture book during the unit, such as Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed. After learning and acting out the song, students would draw a picture to describe the life cycle as they see it. During the drawing time it may be effective to have the song playing on repeat so that they are hearing the cycle while drawing it, which would help to make students remember it better.

Author Presentation: Bruce Lansky

Bruce Lansky is an internationally known poet, sometimes referred to as the “King of Giggle Poetry”. He has a passion for getting children excited about reading and writing poetry and uses fun and playful language that is easy to understand and his poems are usually humorous. After publishing their own cookbook, Lansky and his wife built Meadowbrook Press and he tackled his dream of being a publisher. He decided he wanted to put together a children’s book of all the poems they loved best, so in order to find these poems, he tested poems in elementary schools and in the process began writing his own poems. He has spent a lot of time reading and testing poems in classrooms, and schools started inviting him to perform. He’s now performed at hundreds of schools. “My goal to put on the most entertaining, most educational, and most motivating assembly a school has ever had.” Lansky strives to get children involved in reading and writing poetry with his entertaining assemblies and playful poems.

Watch Your Tongue, Cecily Beasley

Written by: Lane Fredrickson

Illustrated by: Jon Davis

Published in 2012

I selected “Watch You Tongue, Cecily Beasley” because it was a funny and interesting take on kindness and manners.  In kindergarten, part of the TEKS are focused on people interactions, importance of respect, and appropriate communication with others, so I thought this book fit perfectly in a kindergarten setting.  Not only does it really focus on kindness, but it also has a fun rhyming pattern that gives it great flow and makes it fun for children.  The story is about a girl who has horrible manners and always sticks her tongue out, but then something happens that teaches her a lesson on manners.  I do think, however, that this book would work better as a complete read aloud, rather than a snippet, especially if the focus is on teaching students about kindness.  However, because of the great cliffhanger it leaves, here is the part I chose to read as a snippet:

 

“Cecily Beasley was never polite.  She never said, ‘Thank you,’ or ‘Please’ or ‘Good night.’

She tap-danced on tables.  She cartwheeled in dirt.  And she wrote, ‘I won’t share’ on the front of her shirt.  She sucked up spaghetti in one giant slurp.  And she’d laugh if she belched out a loud, stinky burp.

But those aren’t the worst things that Cecily did.  That mannerless, cartwheeling, toy-hogging kid would stick out her tongue, put her thumbs in her ears, and make dreadful faces at teachers and peers.

A boy named Bernard said, ‘You know, that’s bad luck.  If you do it too much, then your tongue might get stuck.’

When Bernard had a birthday, the was in place, and Cecily sang with a smirk on her face.  Then just when the very last note had been sung, something horrible happened to Cecily’s tongue.”