Dancing Garden

Use creative movement and guided imagery to introduce or review the concepts of plant growth.

1. Show the child some seeds. Talk about what seeds need to grow. All seeds store a little bit of food inside them to help the plant start to grow. Once the plant is in the sunlight, it can make much of its own food through photosynthesis.

2. Ask the child to become a seed, forming their body into the tiniest body shape they can create. What kind of seed are you? What plant will you become?

3. Lights off! Seeds grow underground in the dark. Explain that when they get food and water that they will grow in slow motion.

4. Give child a piece of fruit to eat to eat when it starts to rain.

5. A plant mister or spray bottle with water on mist becomes the rain. Encourage them to grow in slow motion, sprouting as they eat the food stored in the seed.

5. Turn on the lights. Now the seedlings don't need their stored food anymore. They soak up the sunlight and photosynthesize. Oh, but the plants can't make their own water so they might need a little more rain.

6. When the plants are grown, find out what each child is. What would happen with no sunlight? No rain? What do people need to grow?

WORDS YOU CAN USE: Seeds, plants, grow, nutrients, shape, slow motion, photosynthesis, rain, sun