Most classes, preschool and early elementary, are studying seeds, growth, and spring science topics. I have used the traditional stories on this theme but happened to pick up “Seeds, Bulbs, Plants and Flowers” from the Little Science Stars series ($5.95 on Amazon). I am working with a 5 year-old boy with word-finding difficulties so I frequently ask his kindergarten teacher what topics she is teaching about so I can pre-teach the vocabulary and use the words in different language activities. She told me they were talking about seeds, growth, spring, and magnolia trees.
With bright photographs to illustrate the concepts, and just enough text for this age, this book was a great resource for a language lesson on seeds and flowers. We went through the book, talking about the vocabulary such as bulb, energy, sunlight, eggs, food stored, pollen, dust, nectar, bee, ripe and so on. We discussed concepts like pollination, growth, different kinds of seeds, how they travel and how long plants live. We closed the book and alternated giving words that were associated with flowers and spring. Finally, as a little reward, we played a favorite game with kids, “Orders Up” by Gamewright, but of course my little friend still had to do a little work. I gave him a vocabulary word from our book and he had to make up a sentence. I did the same and he took a turn.
It was a great day. I have never seen him so attentive–maybe he loved the book, the subject or just the promise of the game. He was ready to learn.
