Spring came in a rush to the preschool today. The weather was so lovely and warm with the great white clouds that had us reading It Looked Like Spilt Milk. It was a day to be with the garden, to see how all the plants are doing. Our tree is just starting to leaf out and the birds were busy flying from branch to branch. With the rain, we had been inside and the plants had seemed to be languishing. But the garden was full of energy right from the moment we saw it this morning. The brussels sprouts plants now covered all of the dirt and were filling out. The radishes continue to provide us with great snack food in shapes that make the children laugh. The lettuce is tender and such a pretty shade of green. Our first surprise came when I started to lift up the sweet peas, sugar snaps, and snow peas and found that they had grown from little sprouts to three foot plants that I could weave around their trellises. We wondered what the potatoes are doing under the ground where we can’t see them. None of us have grown potatoes before but we are hopeful as the potato vines are healthy and green.
There is also the mystery plant in one big pot. We have been growing cabbage with little success but we then noticed stalks, growing bigger every day, reaching for the sky. Lots of ideas from the children about what they are- beans, pumpkins, watermelons. We read Jack and the Bean Stalk just in case. Our suspicions are that a few pinto beans from the sensory table found their way outside, but we do have lots of birds so time will tell.
For the first time in many weeks, we watered everything in the yard and then played in the puddles that formed after the plants could no longer drink any more of the water we gave them. It was so great to be barefoot and enjoying the water. We filled the water tables with their plastic tubes, funnels, bottles, and turkey baster.
At 6 o’clock, I said goodbye to the garden that was still soaking up sunlight now that the days were even longer. I came inside to ready the paper white narcissus for the children to plant them tomorrow. The children will enjoy watching the bulbs sprout and grow, then they will take home a bit of spring of their own. It was a great way to begin spring at the school!
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John Gibbon came through the door, loaded with crystals ranging from the very large to the small. The children were excited and ready to see him. For weeks now, we had been looking at rocks and crystals and the books about them.
Each child had a dark felt piece and they arranged the crystals on it. As the crystals traveled from felt to felt, the children used the hand magnifiers to look at them closely. The largest ones elicited “Wows!”. Geodes were very popular.
