- A Tree is Nice by Berger, M.
- Anna's Garden Songs by Steele, M.Q.
- Discovering Trees by Brandt, K.
- Eating the Alphabet by Ehlert, L.
- From Seed to Plant by Gibbons, G.
- Great Big Enormous Turnip by Tolstoy, A.
- Growing Vegetable Soup by Ehlert, L.
- Here a Plant, There a Plant... by Quackenbush, R.
- In the Tall, Tall Grass by Fleming, D.
- Jack and the Beanstalk by Pearson, S.
- Lunch by Fleming, D.
- Over in the Meadow by Keats, E.
- Planting a Rainbow by Ehlert, L.
- Plants that Never Bloom by Heller, R.
- Reason for a Flower by Heller, R.
- Seed Song by Saksie, J.
- Stone Soup by Brown, M.
- Tiny Seed by Carle, E.
- Tree: A First Discovery Book by Scholastic
Book Extensions
The Tiny Seed
by Eric Carle
Read and discuss the story. Demonstrate how the wind moved the seed by blowing through a straw.
Give each student a straw and a sunflower seed for experimentation. For extra fun, have pairs of students have seed races.
You may also want to have other lightweight materials for the children to experiment with moving.
The Carrot Seed
by Ruth Krauss
Ahead of time, paint a cardboard box brown to represent the soil.
Place a package of carrot seeds, a hand trowel, a watering can, and a package of ready to eat carrots inside the box.
Read the story and as you read, pull out the appropriate object.
When you pull the carrots out at the end, give each child one to munch.
In the Tall, Tall Grass
by Denise Fleming
After sharing and discussing the story, let children make mini-murals. Give each four or five children a large piece of blue bulletin board paper (approx. 36" X 36"), a variety of colored construction paper, and glue. Ask children to recall the things the caterpillar saw in the grass (or you can ask them
to think of things the caterpillar may have seen). Encourage each child to tear construction paper into the shapes of the different things and glue it to the bulletin board paper. Display these on a wall with the heading "In the Tall, Tall Grass"
After reading the story, let children make their own class book entitled, "In the Busy, Busy School" or "In the Big, Big Field" or anything else you may come up with!
Lunch
by Denise Fleming
In advance color and/or cut out a picture to represent each of the foods in the book-a turnip, carrots, corn, peas, blueberries, grapes, apples, and watermelon.
Mount each picture on a similiarly shaped, construction-paper background.
Laminate for durability. Attach a loop of masking tape to the back of each picture.
Use face paint to paint a nose and whiskers on each child. Alternating between groups of eight children, give each child in the group a picture. As you read the text,
have each child act out the part that corresponds with the picture he is holding. When his part is over, press the picture onto his tummy. When the text reads "...he took a nap until..." direct each child to act the part.
Ask each child to bring in an uncut fruit or vegetable from home. Graph the different fruits and vegetables in as many ways as possible (sorting too).
Afterward, have each child draw and cut out a picture of the food item that he brought in and glue it to a piece of chart paper. Next cut up the foods. As children taste the various foods have them give describing words. Write the words beside the corresponding food(s).
Complete this activity by having a large mouse cutout on a sheet of poster board. Let each child paint on a spot of color to represent his food item (I use bingo markers for the spots).
Label the cutout similiar to the picture of the mouse on the last page of the book. Display the poster in the classroom!
Stone Soup
by Marcia Brown
After sharing the story, have the children name the plants the villagers gave the soldiers.
Talk about the parts of a flowering plant with the class. Write the following headings on a chart or on the chalkboard: Leaves, Flowers,
Stems, Roots.
Ask children to tell which parts of these vegetables were used by the soldiers to make stone soup (cabbage-leaves; carrots-roots; potatoes-stems; barley-seeds) Record these in the appropriate spots on the chart.
Add other vegetables to the chart in the appropriate places.
AND/ORLet the children make their own recipe for Stone Soup and record it on chart paper with a large pot drawn on it.
Give each child a black construction paper "pot" and let them glue vegetables from magazines or run off copies of various vegetables onto their "pot".
If you use heavy paper, you can let each child glue a small stone onto their pot as well.
Send home a letter telling parents that you will be making Stone Soup in class and ask them to send in ingredients. Add a nice clean stone to the pot and enjoy!
Following are some ingredients needed for your soup: water, three round smooth stones, salt, pepper, carrots, cabbage, beef (I used the canned roast beef in gravy and it really added a nice flavor), potatoes, barley, milk.
