A nice topic for Spring time is the Garden Centre.
I like to start this topic in conjunction with the story book Oliver’s vegetables which is my story sack for this topic too.
There are lots of opportunities for cross curricular integration in this topic, from Science and Geography to Art.
In the socio-dramatic area I have a market stall with a weighing scales (Maths). I also bought lots of artificial flowers, (an idea I borrowed from another school) but it definitely brings character to the socio-dramatic area. Other little things to add that can be donated by parents are children’s garden tools, seed packets and pots, gardening gloves etc.
Small world can be the garden centre with green felt and lots of people. In construction the children can build the garden centre. Mine also added a cafe to their garden centre last year. This carried over the socio-dramatic too.
Art can be construction, paint and colour, lots of options for printing, painting and making flowers.
Finally, for this topic I replaced the sand tray with a planting table. The children had compost and little pots and they got to plant a variety of flowers and vegetables. These were kept in the classroom for a number of weeks and were replanted into the school garden in the Summer term.
It was a great topic and it made the children more aware of growing flowers and vegetables. The story also helped to identify more vegetables and the children really liked the character Oliver.
Display packs for the Garden Centre can be found on twinkl.co.uk. Stick puppets for the story sack can be found on twinkl also.
Aistear Múinteoir 