Millie, Millie,oh so sillie
How does your garden grow?
"With green peppers and watermelon,
and nary a thing in a row."
That's my tribute to "Silly Mille." About a month ago, Mikayla asked me how to spell "Millie." Unsuspecting of anything life-changing, I told her. She responded with, "I like it! You can call me Mille from now on." I thought it would be a passing phase, however, she has family and friends actually referring to her as "Millie" now. Silly girl...I hope she outgrows it at some point and I still refer to her as Mikayla ALL of the time. I might just be more stubborn than her-- we will see!
Anyway, so I mentioned in my Yucky Worms! post that we were working on some gardening stuff. Actually, we completed one of our first unit studies for the summer. I think unit studies are a fun way to continue learning during the summer, without the pressure of the school year. Basically, they are topic-oriented, not subject-oriented. I let my girls pick a subject, in this case gardening, and we do all learning around that topic. It is a lot of fun, and there are many out there to choose from. Even better than the great variety is that many awesome bloggers let you download them for FREE! God has created many talented moms and teachers who put a lot of work in these unit studies and then offer them to the rest of us so we don't have to do it on our own-- how AWESOME!
Here it is, from 1+1+1=1, the Garden Preschool Pack.
We started with a trip the library for some books on gardening. Although we couldn't find the ones recommended in the preschool pack, there were several that we brought home to read.
Here, Mikayla is matching the parts of a flower to the names. She learned these pretty quickly. She also learned how plants start from a seed and grow to become what we see above the ground.
Susie is doing some pre-writing stuff...she is tracing the "water" from the watering can to the flowers! She does such a good job with this-- FOCUSED!
We missed the deadline for it this year, but maybe next year the girls and I will participate in the Homeschool Garden Village Challenge. We will take the time to show the girls how we plan and plant our garden. As it is, they have learned so much this year. Last year was our first year with a garden, so everything was new. Now we are able to take the time to show the girls how to care for the garden so it has the best chance of success. So far, we have already been able to make a few dishes from our garden veggies-- it makes supper so much more fun to know we grew the food ourselves.
"The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." Isaiah 58:11
