Math in the Garden Class #2

There wasn't much math in this part of the class... mostly it was games. Which were super fun. First we played "Back Yard Bingo" which they had to go and find each one of the things on this list and call out "BINGO!" (On this card, you can see the pink heart stampers and 'bingo' across the top of this one) The game went on for quite a while longer than we thought though. The kids really were into the 'hunt and find' part of the game, so they kept going... every one of them... until their cards were full.

Then we did a 'sniff and search' game. I had taken a egg carton apart and put (in two cup segments) 6 different herbs in them. The first side of the cup was an peice of the herb so they could see what it looked like... and the second part of the cup was a bunch of cut up peices of the same herb, so they could really smell it. Each kid picked one and they ran off to find the herb that they had chosen. That was SO much fun! I hope that Sarah got pictures of it... I sure did not... I was having fun running around and comparing the kids guesses with them. :)

Then we did leaf rubbings. I had picked a bunch of huge Broad Leaf Maple leaves on my walk that morning, and the kids did big rubbings of them on a roll of paper. Then they each got their leaf and made a creature out of it. After a while, imaginations were kicking in....

Then, their imaginations went wild. They started asking if they could do the same with leaves from around my yard. All of them were amazing!

It was just amazing to watch... Every one of these came out of beautiful 1st grade minds. :)

The last bit of the class was comparing our garden boxes. Each family had taken care of theirs a bit different. One had put hers in a sunny window for a week, and then put it outside. Another had it outside the whole time, and another had it in a shaded, but bright back room. Drastically different just from the amount of direct sun they were allowed to get and the warmth of their first growing weeks. That was incredible to me, but I have to admit, the kids were not as thrilled with that part as with the rest of the class. lol...

During the first class, we planted some seeds in my big garden of swiss chard and spinach. The kids from the second class helped me pick all of that, and then make a salad out of it.

We pulled up our carrots, chard, and radishes from our garden boxes, and added the chard to the salad from the big garden. We talked a bit about what plants need to grow, and read part of the Seeds, Seeds, Seeds book. We ate the salad and drank lemonade and had our salad with raspberry vinagrette dressing for a lunch starter.

All in all, even without much math, it was a great and fun class.