Our Gardening Bulletin Board

I have one bulletin dedicated to displaying what we have been doing and learning in our garden.  The subject areas will stay, and I plan to add/remove activities as we progress through the year.  I am using it with summer camp now, then with Pre-K during the school year.  It is constantly evolving, and is an easy way to display to parents/admin. the progress.  The other component I have yet to add, is a descriptive note about each activity and how they correlate to the learning domains/standards.  This component is something NAEYC really likes to see and I should have it on there already!

I just noticed as I was going through my pics, that I didn't take one of the whole board, just took pics of each section.  In doing this, I somehow missed the title, centered and above the other stuff, "Gardening is our path to learning," or something like that, lol.

left side of board

This shows some of our corn cobs as well as the kids tilling and composting the old spring stuff.  I was able to stick with our summer camp calendar that had a day set aside for bubble wrap, and tied it into our gardening.  I LOVE bubble wrap!  Our summer camp is divided into 3 age groups.  We rotated the groups so that each group did 3 bubble wrap activities.  With my activity, we gave each child a yellow 'cob' outline, and a 'husk' outline to cut out.  For the 2 older groups, I had them write a prediction on their husk, stating how many days they though it would be until our corn stalks produced corn.  I omitted this with the 5 years old's because they take longer to cut out shapes and have less writing abilities.  This was a last minute decision based on lack of time.  In the future, I would pre-write,  "_____________ predicts we will have corn in _____ days," on the green husks. Then the younger crowd can write their name on the first line and the number on the second space.  The children then painted white paint on the bubble wrap and laid their yellow cob over the bubble wrap to make the little circular imprints that look like corn kernels.

Obviously the corn cobs help the kids with fine motor skills.  They also provide another 'media' to create artwork, and include scientific development by making predictions.

In the photos, the children are developing their gross motor skills.  Social skills are integrated as they take turns using the garden tools.   Recycling the old plants into the compost bin adds a 'self sustaining' social studies element as well as science.

 The mathematical area has some of the 'observational data' that the kids did on our corn.  We have marked 2 corn stalks in the garden that are different.  One is a straight stalk and the other one has 2 side shoots.  The children drew a pic of each stalk and then wrote a prediction about how well each one will grow, and why.

This uses math via noticing differences in height and number of shoots/stalks.  They are also writing (literacy) and predicting (science).  I also have a couple of these under the "Language and Literacy" section of the board though it is not shown.  They had some great thoughts on these, some thinking that the one with the side shoots would grow better because there are more leaves to get sunlight.  Others felt that the side shoots would take more energy from the main stalk, causing it's growth to slow down.  Smart kids!  We are also measuring these two stalks and graphing their heights twice a week, to determine the 'growth rate' of each.  I will post a pic of that later.

The red tape marks the 2 stalks we are observing, picture taken early/mid July 2011

On the right side of the board we have a prediction chart concerning our watermelon and giant pumpkin...yes I said GIANT.  I'll save that for another post, lol.  We planted both seeds on the same day and they both sprouted around the same time (over the weekend.)  The children had 2 predictions to make on this chart:  Which plant would have the first blossoms, and which will produce the first harvest.  I was amazed  by the discussion/debating that the children had over this as they  waited for their turn to write 'watermelon' or 'pumpkin' for each prediction.  

This is a great example of why I allow my class to be 'louder' than others.  These kind of predictions also help keep them interested in the garden, as they are so competitive and ALWAYS want to be 'right'!