Vegetables Everywhere! Find or Make a Preschool Book on Vegetables
Math Skills in a Vegetable Theme
Vegetable themes are great in preschool because they can include lots of other important skills.
For example:
Color recognition: orange carrots and pumpkins, brown potatoes, green broccoli, peas and green beans, yellow corn, red tomato (which can be called a fruit or vegetable)
Sorting: sort by color, shape or where they grow (above or below the ground)
Patterns: Carrot, carrot, celery, celery, bean,_____ (What comes next in the math pattern?)
Graphing: Make a picture graph using several choices of vegetables. Ask each student to vote for the vegetable he or she likes the best. Then do least liked vegetable. Which vegetable gets the most votes?
Vegetable Books
Eat your Peas, Louise by Pegeen Snow. All it takes is one little word for Louise to eat her peas. But will father figure out the right
word? Read it a second time and pause while your students add the correct rhyming words.
Rabbit Food by Susanna Gretz. A bunny who doesn’t like carrots? Hard to believe. Uncle Bunny comes to bunny-sit with little bunnies Danny, Debbie and John. John doesn’t like to eat anything that is good for him. No celery, no tomatoes, no peas, no carrots and no mushrooms. But it turns out that Uncle Bunny is hiding the fact that he doesn’t like carrots either. This book has a very cute craft called a “baked potato rabbit”. Slice a baked potato lengthwise and use the flat white side to make the face. Use two peas for the eyes, sliced mushroom for the nose, strips of celery for the whiskers and carrots for the ears.
Winter Days in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura helps her family gather vegetables to store for the winter.
Never Take a Pig to Lunch selected and illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott. This book is filled with silly poems about food like this one by Eve Merriam:
“Peculiar”
I once knew a boy who was odd as could be:
He liked to eat cauliflower and broccoli
And spinach and turnips and rhubarb pies
And he didn’t like hamburgers or French fries.
Here’s one by an Anonymous that the students may be able to memorize:
I eat my peas with honey.
I’ve done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny.
But it keeps them on the knife.
Making a Vegetable Book
Start by creating a cover for the book. Use a picture of a potato, head of lettuce, or a picture of several vegetables. Have the students color the cover of the book. Add (cut to size and shape) four pieces of paper with a line at the bottom where the teacher can write.
Above the writing, the student can add a picture.
Page 1: My favorite vegetable is______________. The teacher fills in the answer that the child says. The child colors a picture of the favorite vegetable.
Page 2: The color of my favorite vegetable is__________. Teacher fills in the color word and the student colors a swatch of the color.
Page 3: My favorite vegetable grows______________. (Below or above the ground) Teacher asks the student where the vegetable grows (may need help) and adds the words on the line. Student colors a picture.
Page 4: I like to eat my favorite vegetable with_______(peanut butter, butter, cheese, my family)
Page 5: Back cover of construction paper.
Venture Into Vegetables
When you find a preschool book on vegetables and help your students learn how to make a preschool book on vegetables, you will practice many skills across the curriculum. It’s a fun way to encourage learning about foods that are good for you and your students.
This post is part of the series: A Vegetable Theme for Preschool
A vegetable theme for preschool will provide your students with colorful and nutritious information. These lesson plans will list some appropriate books to read, some tasting activities, opportunities to work on sorting and pattern skills and an idea for a book that the students can make.
