How Do I
BLAST Early Learning
Eat Your Fruits and Veggies
Books:
Rah, Rah, Radishes!: A Vegetable Chant
by April Pulley Sayre
Photographs of vegetables and rhyming text celebrate vegetables in all their colorful and tasty variety.
Up, Down, and Around
by Katherine Ayres;
illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott
A garden produces a variety of edible plants, such as corn that grows up, onions that grow down, and tomato vines that twine all around.
by Denia Lewis Hester;
illustrated by Jackie Urbanovic
Grandma Lena grows a turnip so big that it takes her entire family to pull it up and half of the town to eat it. Includes a note about cooking "soul food."
Open-ended Questions for Rah Rah Radishes! A Vegetable Chant:
• What is your favorite vegetable?
• Which new vegetable from our book would you like to try?
Return to the topSongs:
Plant a Seed
Dig, dig, dig a hole and
Plant, plant, plant a seed and
Watch, watch, watch it grow some food… For you and you and you and you and you and me.
Five Green Apples
Farmer Brown had five green apples
hanging on a tree.
Farmer Brown had five green apples
hanging on a tree.
Then he plucked one apple and he ate it hungrily… leaving four green apples
a-hanging on a tree.
(Continue song with four, three, two, and one green apple.)
Rhyme:
Plant a Seed
Dig, dig, dig a hole and
Plant, plant, plant a seed and
Watch, watch, watch it grow some food… For you and you and you and you and you and me.
Vocabulary Word:
turnip : n. an edible plant with a large, usually whitish root, and hairy leaves that are sometimes used as greens.
“Every day the turnips grew. One was bigger than the rest.”
(taken from Grandma Lena’s Big Ol’ Turnip by Denia Lewis Hester)
Activities:
Math
Fruit and Veggie Fractions
Materials: Different fruits and vegetables, knife
Use different vegetables that are solid and round. Cut one in half. Cut another into quarters. Talk with the kids about what “half” and “quarter” mean.
Art/Craft
Incredible Apple Prints
(Taken from Sing It! Say It! Stamp It! Sway It! by Peter and Ellen Allard)
Materials: Apples, newspapers, tempera paint, paper, flat containers for paint
1. Spread out newspapers to protect your work surface. Prepare the apples by cutting or slicing horizontally.
2. Pour paint onto trays or plates.
3. Children dip apple in paint and then press into place on the printing paper. Experiment by using different paint colors and different textures and/or colors of paper.
Science
Root-Top Gardens
(Taken from Sing It! Say It! Stamp It! Sway It! by Peter and Ellen Allard)
Materials: Several root vegetables (carrot, parsnip, turnip, beet), kitchen knife, large dish or bowl, clean pebbles
- If the vegetables already have leaves on them, trim the leaves, leaving about 1/4 inch of their stems.
- Slice off about 1/2 inch from each vegetable.
- Put the root tops on a large plate, cut side down, with just enough water to cover the bottom of the vegetable.
- Fill the spaces between the root tops with clean pebbles.
- Put the plate on a sunny windowsill. In a few days, you will see the tiny leaf shoots starting to grow. In several weeks, you will have a leafy garden. Keep the root top garden well watered.
Literature:
Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!
by Candace Fleming and G. Brian Karas
After planting the garden he has dreamed of for years, Mr. McGreely tries to find a way to keep some persistent bunnies from eating all his vegetables.
Growing Vegetable Soup
written and illustrated
by Lois Ehlert
A father and child grow
vegetables and then make them into a soup.
Eating the Alphabet
by Lois Ehlert
An alphabetical tour of the world of fruits and vegetables, from apricot and artichoke to yam and zucchini.
The Vegetables We Eat
by Gail Gibbons
Illustrations and simple text describe the various vegetables people eat.
