Preschool Adventure Box: BFIAR The Carrot Seed

I have just a few more Before Five in a Row titles to row in order to finish the curriculum.  I am starting to realise I am a little pedantic about finishing things.  It bugs me if I don’t.  So even though these last few books don’t spark my imagination as much as I would like, I’m still rather doggedly continuing until the bitter end.  That’s a bit melodramatic but I’m struggling with my interest levels.  I mean there are limited, interesting activities one can do with a carrot.  Anyway, here is my best shot.  We finished rowing the Carrot Seed this week, having done a few carroty activities over the summer.  Yes, enthusiastic I am not.

Theme: Carrots

• Read alouds and go along books

     

• Factual Books

   

• Morning Play dough

I used the tub of brown (soil), orange (carrot) and green (carrot top) and gave them one of our cooking plant pots to plant some carrots in should they want to:

• Sensory Tray

I made a sensory tray using mini carrots with tops, plant pots, trays, earth and lots of tools.  Here is the tray ready to go:

And it was a huge hit.  Well, anything with dirt and water is a hit here!

• Trays

C10:

I set up a tray for C10 to help the little ones make some carrot prints all of their own.  I cut carrots with their tops left on lengthways and added some orange and green paint, with some paper and they were away:

L10:

She used her time with A5 to roll and cut out fish carrot shaped cookies.  They baked them, allowed them to cool and then they iced and ate!

T11:

T11  played the Carrot matching game with A4 which she loved:

In addition, I taught them to use the book as a template for making some carrots to put on the rabbit and carrot play dough mat:

• Games or Group activities:

Over the summer we planted our own kitchen garden, which of course included carrots for the purpose of a link to the Carrot Seed!  First the children planted the garden:

Then A4, with C10’s help painted and labelled some lolly sticks to use as labels:

Here are the completed labels:

She then went and proudly planted them in her and B2’s kitchen garden:

B2 delighted in watering them, all dressed up as a fairy:

And their favourite part of the whole exercise? Picking them! Although they were not like the carrots in the shop:

• Then we ate some rather delicious carrot soup:

• We also planted carrot tops.  I was quite excited about the possibilities of this.  The idea we could plant something we would otherwise throw away and grow greens to feed our rabbits appealed to the frugal in me.  However, we planted them at the beginning of summer and at the end this was all we had to show for our efforts.  Not very, very successful.  Frankly, I’d rather buy a cabbage:

• Printables and other activities/ideas

Garden Song

http://www.squidoo.com/carrot-lesson-plans

The Carrot Seed dance

Sid the Seed video

• Snacks

The first snake we made was trusty tortilla pizzas in the shape of a carrot.  I simply cut out the shape, added whatever green we had in the fridge and some tomato and onion sauce smothered in orange cheese, and popped them in the oven for a couple of minutes.  Yummy:

Another snack we did was a muffin tin plant pot, filled with cream cheese and carrots stuck in for a veggy dip.  A5 did this one completely by herself.  Healthy and yummy:

During one of A5’s cooking sessions with her sister (L10) they made a carrot cake using a cake mixture.  As this happens so rarely (cake mixture) there was much, much excitement.  Honestly, my children are soooo easily pleased!  It turned out great and was iced with a cream cheese and icing sugar mix (which was a bit too like fluid for my liking!) and a carrot added on top for good measure:

The last snack I tried was crisps made out of carrots.  I bought these and they were really good!

• Muffin Tin

Their muffin tin for this week was simply carrot soup, toasted cheese in the shape of carrots on a bed of basil, mini carrots and a mini carrot cake for dessert:

Next week we’ll be rowing I Am Artist and learning about the five senses