Grow a Garden of Words

Late spring. Color returns to nature. Hands are busy planting beds and pots. It’s also a good time for little hands to plant… WORDS!

Keep the learning going as the school year winds down by “growing” a word garden.

Using plastic plant markers, write words from a current read aloud or unit of study in science or social studies and “plant” them in a flower pot. You could use both sides of the plant marker to include synonyms or antonyms as well. You could also try color-coding related words, or consider using separate pots for nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The markers can then be “harvested” from the “garden” to sort or play vocabulary games.

 

 

Students could also cut and glue a flower shape to popsicle sticks to grow their own bouquet. If you want to go down in the dirt, like in Kate Messner’s book “Up in the Garden, Down in the Dirt,” students could create word worms and caterpillars. Bees and birds could land on the words to read them and use them to discuss the book with a partner.

The word gardens could also be combined with our Garden-themed book pairing featuring Messner’s book.

 

 

Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner

Grab your garden gloves and get planting!