Watering Their Flowers
Here’s another idea for outdoor learning for September or any month when plants are growing. This activity follows on from yesterday’s activity and is part of our school orientation for the littlest learners.
On the second day of school when the children go outside, we invite them to water their flowers. This experience has multiple interdisciplinary learning objectives:
1. Provide interest and motivation for the children to go outdoors.
2. Teach children to appreciate and take care of nature.
3. Teach children the needs of plants.
4. Develop children’s technical vocabulary (watering can, handle, spout, water, plant, flower, leaves, soil, roots).
5. Develop the children’s mathematical positional vocabulary (above, below, beside, in front, behind, left, right).
6. Encourage conversation among the children.
7. Provide children with the opportunity to help one another, wait for their turn and share.
Fewer watering cans than children requires taking turns and sharing.
8. Develop gross motor skills (water is heavy).
9. Foster problem-solving skills.
If you don’t yet have flowers to water outside, consider letting your students water the trees, hedges, shrubs and grass on their school grounds.
You might discover some children will ask to water the flowers and plants in your garden every day – even when it’s raining!
How can we fill up our watering cans?
Working together fosters new friendships.
