Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Beautiful Kinder-Garden

One of the most played up takes on Kindergarten is, of course, the Kinder "garden." Like most teachers I have planted the Kindergarden outside, but since I do not have a green thumb I am always more excited about plants and flowers I can’t kill.

I was always amazed at how much students grew in Kindergarten. Sometimes it seemed they just shot up over night! So a few years ago I started measuring kids during the first week of school. I would then cut a strip of green construction paper (about 2 inches wide) to their height. They would then decorate a large flower to put at the top of this green stem and finally add some leaves to the sides. Since I was the last room in the hallway, there was a stretch of about fifteen feet outside my door to the end of the hall that wasn’t really used. After our flowers were done, I would “plant” them outside in the hallway for the year. During the last few weeks of school I would measure the kids again and cut another strip of green construction paper to their height. This made their second stem. Again they would decorate a flower for the top and add leaves or other details. We would “plant” these flowers next to the ones from the start of school to see how much our garden had grown and at the end of the year the students took home both flowers from their “kindergarden.”

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