In a tree? On the ground? Under the ground? - Where does it grow?

Jungle in the classroom

The weather is hotting up and some of you may be keeping yourselves busy by tending to your garden and getting your green fingers dirty. As some of you may know back in March we ran a workshop where some able and willing volunteers planted a collection of seeds in the hopes of seeing them flourish after a rather cold and harsh winter. In fact one of the plants has grown to about the same size as some of our younger students! As these plants have proved to spark wonder and curiosity into my students I took them as inspiration to include more nature based activities within the classroom.

Enjoying the sunshine

Ideally I would love to have a huge garden where we could grow lots of different plants, especially fruit and vegetables as they are a very common topic within a young learner's curriculum. Plus we could always eat them when we get hungry during class.

Is that a mouse?

Rather than dwelling on the fact that we are inhibited by a lack of gardening space me and my students turned instead to the next best thing. Our imaginations! Always a great alternative when things won't quite go your way. Instead of actually planting fruit and vegetables we took on the task of illustrating where some of the fruit and vegetables we've learnt in class would grow if we had the means to grow them.

Now some students took this activity more seriously than others, some intentionally drawing potato trees and mice nibbling at the underground bananas. However it did prove to be a fun and productive activity where we could practise prepositions, our writing skills and fruit and vegetables vocabulary as well as test the students' critical thinking and logical reasoning.

We will be looking to expand our flower pot garden, with lots more surprises to come. Maybe even adding a caramel plant to the collection. Or even the proverbial money tree. What will you be growing in your garden this year?