planting flowers adventure circle

Planting Flowers is our last adventure circle for the Spring Semester. Here's how it goes:

We start with "We're going to plant a beautiful flower garden. What do we need first? Seeds! And what do seeds look like?"

We curl into balls and roll around while singing our repeating verse (from the Enki Education Movement Activity, "Mother Earth") three times:

Mother Earth, Mother Earth,
Take this seed and give it birth.

Then I say, "We're going to plant our seeds just like the farmers do," and we move into the Enki Kindergarten Activity "Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley".

Next I say "Father Sun warms the earth our seeds are planted in, and their roots begin to grow, making their own little tunnels through the soil."

The kids crawl back and forth through a tunnel while we sing our repeating verse three times:

Father Sun, gleam and glow,
Then the roots begin to grow.

Then we transition directly to the Enki Kindergarten Movement Activity "The Little Plant".

Next I say "Plants need water to grow. Sister Rain provides plenty of water for our plants."

The kids jump on the bed (like splashing rain drops) while we sing our repeating verse three times:

Sister Rain, Sister Rain,
Shed thy tears to swell the grain.

Then we move right into the Enki Kindergarten Movement Activity "Rain".

I had out jars of bubbles to the kids while saying "A gentle breeze came up and our little plants swayed to and fro".

The kids blow bubbles while walking down the hall back to the living room, as we sing our repeating verse three times:

Brother Wind, breeze and blow,
Then the green blades soon will show.

We then start the Enki Kindergarten Movement Activity "Winds". Since this is a spinning activity, we need to ground it by alternating it with a grounding/proprioceptive activity, so after the first time through "Winds", we do the first verse of "Spider Web", then I say "Oh, I hear the wind picking up again!" to transition us back to another round of "Winds", then "Oh no, the wind tore apart the spider web, that spider will have to start over again", moving us back to another verse of "Spider Web". We keep alternating to get three of each activity. ("Spider Web" also works on Naval Radiation, which is one of our OT tasks for Zoo Boy.)

When we are done with the sets of verses, we review all 4 of the sensory integration activities as follows:

"We've planted our seeds in Mother Earth,"

(Kids roll like seeds while we sing, once):

Earth and Wind, Sun and Rain,
Help to grow this golden grain.

"Father sun warmed the earth and the roots grew,"

(Kids crawl through tunnel as we repeat the above verse.)

"Sister Rain brought water to our growing plants, "

(Kids jump on bed while we sing the above verse.)

"Brother Wind rocked our plants to and fro as they grew."

(Kids blow bubbles while we sing the above verse.)

"And now our flowers are ready to bloom!"

We do the Enki Kindergarten Movement Activity "Mother Earth's Secrets", then say,

"Look at all the beautiful flowers we grew with the help of Mother Earth, Father Sun, Sister Rain, and Brother Wind!"

We finish up the Adventure Circle with the Enki Kindergarten Movement Activity "Lavender's Blue".

We've also been planting flower seeds, both in our flower garden and in containers for us to monitor indoors on our nature table. Here J checks out the progress of a variety of flower seeds. Planting was unfortunately too involved an activity to get any photos of, but I'll be sure to post some pictures of our results!