It has been a long time since we’ve shared a theme series, and I still have a couple to share from last year. Now that we are getting back into our school routine I am going to pick up where we left off after our U is for Underground Animals series.
For the letter V we learned all about vegetables. To kick off the week I set up an invitation to play with vegetables. The kids were SO excited to discover this on Monday morning. They chose to spend almost all of their free time playing with this vegetable stand throughout the week.
FIND ALL OF OUR VEGETABLE ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE LESSON PLANS
FOR HOME PRESCHOOL AND PRESCHOOL CLASSROOMS.
To set up the stand I gathered a fresh produce, a large cardboard box, a table cloth, one of our toy bin organizers, and a few store related accessories we had around the house.
The real novelty here was the fresh produce. The kids were so excited to have real food to touch and play with, and it led to so many wonderful conversations and discoveries about vegetables throughout the week. As we cooked and prepared snacks we also selected produce from the vegetable stand so that it did not go to waste.
With a little supervision, this was an activity that the toddlers and preschoolers could enjoy together. Little Buddy and Big Buddy loved to shop and feel the vegetables.
Lovey took her job as store clerk very seriously. She was quite professional and loved helping her customers choose the right vegetables.
Next week I’ll be back to share some of the learning activities we did to go along with our vegetable stand.
GET A FULL WEEK OF VEGETABLE THEME LEARNING AND PLAY
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.
This set includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:
1) Vegetable Emergent Reader (2 versions)
2) Syllable Sorting Activity
3) Vegetable Photos (color and B/W)
4) Vegetable Letter Puzzles (color and B/W)
5) Vegetable Stand Pretend Play Signs
6) Vegetable Number Cards (Color and B/W)
7) Shopping for Vegetables Counting Game
8) Vegetable Cards with and without labels (color and B/W)
9) Vegetable Sink or Float Predictions and Results Recording Sheets (color and B/W)
10) Vegetable Taste Test Recording Sheets (color and B/W)
11) Design a Vegetable Garden Planning Sheet (2 versions)
GET YOUR LESSON PLANS
Home Preschool Vegetable Theme Lesson Plans
Preschool Classroom Vegetable Theme Lesson Plans
All of our products are also available on Teachers Pay Teachers if you prefer to shop there.
Mary Catherine
LOVE this, Shauna!! I’m going to try this out with my preschoolers later on this school year. I’m featuring you veggie stand at Share It Saturday tomorrow. 🙂
Shaunna
Oooh, I can’t wait to hear about it. I would really like to try this in a diverse class and invite the kids to bring in a favorite vegetable. I bet it could be a great cultural activity as well as science, literacy, and math! Some days I miss the classroom 😉
Allison
I love this – I’ll be featuring it on The Sunday Showcase this weekend. Thank you for linking up!
Shaunna
Thanks so much for the feature, Allison!
Jackie Higgins
I love this. We are learning about colors this week. Vegetables of different colors would make a great addition to our theme, plus Grandpa has tons of fresh freebies in his garden for us! Thanks for sharing your ideas.
Shaunna
Oh, how fun to be able to choose the vegetables right from the garden! Have fun!
Kaysha
What a wonderful idea! I never would have thought to use real vegetables!
Shaunna
Thank you!
Jackie
I love that you had them exploring real produce! The hooligans would absolutely love this!
Shaunna
Thanks, Jackie! I don’t think they would have been near as excited or engaged throughout the week if we had used our regular pretend play food. The real produce really was a great teaching tool. Hope you and the hooligans try it out some day.
Deborah
This is wonderful!
Shaunna
Thanks, Deborah!
Jeanette Nyberg
Wow, those vegetables look real 😉 I truly love that you didn’t just use fake vegetables. How novel!
Shaunna
lol! You’re funny, Jeanette. Isn’t it funny how sometimes the smallest changes to an ordinary activity can make a HUGE difference for the kids?
Kelly at Little Wonders' Days
I love that you used real veggies and then they picked what to have for snacks from them. Visiting from TGIF!
Shaunna
Thanks, Kelly! I love how it turned out to be the focus of our week and inspired us to test out a few new recipes.
Holly Giles
Great idea with fresh vegetables! The kids will remember what it is next time because they got to feel it! Thank you for sharing. Holly
Shaunna
Thanks, Holly! They really did make some connections and great observations during that week.