The Carrot Seed: Activity Board

Find book here

Danielle at Mommy and Me Book Club and Christina and E.J. at Toddler Approved hosted April's Virtual Book Club for Kids and the book that they chose for April is "The Carrot Seed", by Ruth Krauss. Along with a couple dozen or so other bloggers, I chose to read the book and create an activity to share on their blog hop. I encourage you to click on the thumbnails at the bottom of this post to see what my fellow bloggers have come up with in regards to the book. They are a creative bunch and I have enjoyed seeing their ideas, many of which I plan to try out in my classroom.

First of all, I want to tell you that I was truly delighted to be introduced to this true gem of a book. It is very simple in its wording and structure, yet the message of the book serves as a great metaphor for persevering in your goals despite the opinion of naysayers surrounding you. This book is more than 60 years old; it was first published in 1945. I feel its content is, and always will be, timeless.

Since I teach small children from 2 to 6 years of age, I thought something akin to a felt board would be a perfect activity for the children. Instead of a felt board I used laminated pictures with ticky tack backing to serve the same purpose.

Here is the story acted out...the star — my son, and the narrator — me.

Pieces needed for Story: 3 "NO" signs, a carrot (no taller than the ground area of the picture) - the carrot is attached at the top by a looped piece of fishing line, a seed, 5 weeds (I chose dandelions), a watering can, and the Story Board with sun, sky, grass, dirt and carrot sign. I used ticky tack to adhere the pieces, and a bull clip to hang the board.

To make the Story board, I glued 2 pieces of construction paper together: Blue for the sky, green for the grass and a little brown strip (glued to the green paper) for the dirt. *Note- I just glued the edges of the green paper (the non-dirt area) onto the blue so that there is a hole in the center to plant the seed and to "hide the carrot". When I put contact paper over the paper, I cut a slit with the edge of scissors where "the hole is". Behind the green construction paper I taped a piece of paper, so that the seed and the carrot don't fall out of the bottom. I drew all the pictures for the "pieces" of the story, laminated them with contact paper, and cut them out.

Set up: Place the carrot into the hole. Make sure the fishing line loop is sticking out. Place the 5 dandelions on the grass area.

Adult reads story: "A little boy planted a seed". Have child put seed in "hole".

"His mother said, "NO! I'm afraid it won't come up!" Child sticks "NO" sign up on board. Please note: I have added the word NO! to each of the comments by the little boy's family. It is not in the original text by the author.

 "His father said, "NO! I'm afraid it won't come up!" Child sticks 2nd "no" sign up on board.

 "And his big brother said, "NO! I'm afraid it won't come up!" Have child stick 3rd sign up on board.

"Every day the little boy pulled up the weeds around the seed..." Have child pick off 2 dandelions and stick them on side board.

"And sprinkled the ground with water" Child uses watering can and pretends to water the seed. I encourage sound effects "shhsshhshhhshh".

Adult turns page and reads "but nothing came up".

Turn page again, "And nothing came up".

"But he still pulled up the weeds around it every day and sprinkled the ground with water."

"Everyone kept saying, "NO, NO, NO", it won't come up." Either child or adult points to each "NO".

"And then, one day, a carrot came up... " (Adult pauses) "...Just as the little boy had known it would". Child pulls up carrot by the fishing line.

My son and the preschoolers LOVED this. At the preschool they all took turns doing a step. Of course the most popular part came to be pulling the carrot up at the end. 

Please check out the links below for more ideas! Thanks for stopping by! Remember to like my Facebook Page where I share links to many more ideas that I have found around the crafty blogosphere!