Tu B'Shevat Theme: Planting Time!

You cannot very well learn about Tu B'Shevat without getting your hands dirty and sewing some seeds of your own! In Israel, it's customary to donate funds toward planting trees. Where we live, it's not quite outdoor planting season yet, but it's a wonderful time of year to start an indoor kitchen herb garden!

We began our morning with a fun invitation to play about planting with play-dough and this great free printable play-dough mat:

After we finished our morning circle time routine, my son went over to get his schoolbag, which I always keep on a hook at his level. He was quite excited to see it was fuller than usual! Inside were a couple of great related books to read, some seed starting pots and four packets of seeds to plant together: cilantro, basil, thyme, and parsley!

This was a great PJ Library book we received a couple of years ago. Pamela Ehrenberg's playful rhyming story is accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Constanze Kitzing as the reader is carried through the process of planting and caring for parsley seeds for Tu B'Shevat that are ready to be eaten at the Pesach seder!

My son loved the colorful illustrations by Bob Staake as author Diane Muldrow's simple, yet lovely text describes the lengthy process of a tree being planted and nurtured through the seasons and years.

My son was very excited to go outside and try his hands at some planting of his own. We gathered all of our planting materials and some learning activities to take along as well. While we are fortunate to be having some quite mild temperatures right now, we still have many very cold or rainy days that are not ideal for outdoor play. When we do have a nice one thrown in, I try to make sure we get outside even if it means we take our homeschool activities out there with us!

I labeled two starter pots for each of the four types of herbs we would plant with permanent marker in advance. He helped fill each pot with potting soil.

Pinching and poking seeds is a great fine motor activity for little hands! We also took some time to look at the pictures of mature herb plants on the seed packets and guess whether the seeds inside would be big or little. We were surprised to see that even though cilantro and parsley have very little leaves, the seeds were quite big. Basil, although it has a larger leaf, has smaller seeds. Planting is a great science activity from seed to sprout to plant and beyond. There is so much to learn and observe and many questions to be asked and answered along the way.

After sprinkling a few seeds on the top of the soil, he used his pointer fingers to gently poke them beneath the soil and make them a cozy soil blanket!

Next it was time to water our seeds. We used a spray bottle and talked about how it was too cold to leave them outside just yet. We brought in our tray and placed it in a sunny window on our dining room table to care for and observe. I hope we'll get some fresh herbs to enjoy!

I used sidewalk chalk to draw
our new special letter in
uppercase and lowercase form.
He had fun drawing as well!

It was such a nice morning that it would be a shame to just come inside. We had some more learning activities planned, including our letter of the week, so we indulged in some natural Vitamin D while learning about the letter Gg!

 Whether we're in or out, I stick to certain repeated routines when we learn a new letter. I sang our usual song to introduce our letter name and beginning sound. For the purpose of our learning today, I only introduced the "hard Gg" sound as is gorilla or gate.

I "planted" some letter Gg manipulatives (magnets, foam letters and blocks) in one of our side gardens for a letter Gg scavenger hunt.

Can you find all of the letter Gg's Growing in our Garden?

He collected them in our basket, practicing his hard "g" sound all the way. 

We finished our outdoor time together with an activity that both incorporates our letter of the week and a theme we will be exploring more in depth later in the week: taking care of our planet. After a fruitful summer in our garden came to an end and over the past several months of all kinds of weather, our yard had come to house a bit of rubbish that needed to be cleaned up. We recycled a brown paper bag to gather the garbage from our garden and bring it to the dumpster. We made sure to wash our hands very well with soap and water when we got in--you may wish to wear gloves if you're doing this activity in your yard and are concerned about germs! 

We had a great morning outside! Our weather is likely to change again bringing us further opportunities to play and explore inside. We make use of our Nature Observation Station indoors to appreciate some of the beauty and wonder of nature even when we cannot be out there in it. One of my favorite DIY learning materials to make and use with children are seed packet observation bags. I use snack size ziplock bags and a variety of seed packets. This particular set has the herb seeds remaining from our planting activity. I empty a small portion of seeds into the bottom of the bag before placing the packet inside and tightly sealing it. Children can appreciate observing the photographs of mature plants and comparing them to the seeds in the bottom of the bag. Magnifying glasses can help to get a closer look on particularly tiny seeds. We still have a full collection of all of the vegetable, herb and flower seeds we planted last Spring and Summer that are still great for observing and exploring (even if they may not be so great for planting anymore).

Happy planting, digging, watering, nurturing and observing--and, as always, happy playing!