Story Time: Flower Garden

This beautifully illustrated book follows a father and his daughter as they gather supplies and plant a window box to surprise the child’s mother for her birthday. Each page flows with simple text that follows a repetitive pattern and engages the reader with an organic rhyming rhythm as the soon-to-be garden moves from checkout stand to box to bus to stairs, and finally to its new home on a window sill overlooking the city. As you read this story aloud, engage children by asking questions and defining difficult vocabulary before, during, and after reading. Here, we share a few ideas:

Book: Flower Garden

Flower Garden Story Time

Kindergarten Common Core Standards

Literature: Key Ideas and Details
RL.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text

Literature: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
RL.K.10 Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding

Before Reading:

Display the book cover and read the title, pointing to each word. Lead a brief discussion that allows children to make some preliminary predictions about what will happen in the story.

What do you see in the cover illustration? (a girl, flowers, a garden)
What do you like best about the picture? (responses will vary)
What do you think this book will be about? (Examples: a girl who likes flowers, a girl who finds a garden, etc.)
Do you know the names of any of the flowers in the picture? Which ones? (daffodil, tulip, daisy)

Review each of the flowers shown on the cover and give a brief, child-friendly definition of each. If you have access to the real versions, place them in a vase on a science table where children can see and smell them up close.

pansy: a colorful flower that looks like it has a face
daisy: a flower with a round center and many thin petals
tulip: a tall, bright flower that looks like a cup
daffodil: a yellow flower with a center that sticks out like a horn
geranium: a red, pink, or purple bloom with several flowers on each stem

During Reading:

As you read, define difficult vocabulary words as they come up (see the list below for some more child-friendly definitions). Stop briefly to ask questions about some of the illustrations. For example, for the illustration on pages 3-4, you might ask:

What is happening in this picture? (a girl is buying things at a store)
Who is the lady with the smile? (the cashier)
What is the girl buying? (flowers, bread, oranges, cereal, raisins)
Do you think someone else is with the girl? Why?
What kind of store do you think this is? (grocery store)
Have you ever been to a store like this? Explain.
What does it mean when someone says, “I can hardly wait.”? (She/He is excited about something happening in the future.)

More Flower Garden child-friendly definitions

garden: plants growing in soil
flower: the part of a plant that makes the seeds
soil: dirt for growing plants
trowel: a small shovel for digging holes for seeds and small plants
window box: a garden container that fits on a window sill

After Reading:

Have children compare their original predictions with the actual outcome in the story. Encourage children to make self-to-text connections by asking the following questions:

Have you ever made a gift for someone?

What did you make?
Who was it for?
What was the occasion?

Let children share their favorite parts of the story and why. Then, let children stand and shake out their sitting and listening muscles with this related movement activity.

Planting a Flower Rhyme

We'll Take Some Dirt
Original Author Unknown

We'll take some dirt
And put it in the pot
We'll plant the little seeds
and water it a lot.

We’ll put it in a sunny spot,
But make sure it isn’t too hot.
We'll wait and start to see
A little flower looking at me.

My Flower Pot Drawing Activity

Preschool Activities:
Media Root

Print Flower Pot printable and let children trace the flower pot and draw flowers.

Dancing Like Flowers Movement Activity

What you need:

Colorful scarves
CD player
Classical musical selections

Recommended CD:

My First Classical Music Album

What you do:

Explain to children that they will pretend to be flowers and dance to a selection of music. Before beginning the movement part of the activity, play the musical selection once through and have children describe the ways they think flowers might move during different parts. Then, give each child two colorful scarves and play the music again. Encourage children to wave their scarves as they pretend to be flowers and dance according to the music’s tempos and moods.

Resources for Flower Garden from our KidsSoup member site:

Preschool Activities: Media Root	Preschool Activities: Media Root
Flower Garden Literacy Activity	Planting a Flower Box Sequencing Cards
Preschool Activities: Media Root	Preschool Activities: Media Root
Six Flowers in a Row Emergent Reader	Six Flowers in a Row Emergent Reader Booklet
Preschool Activities: Media Root	Preschool Activities: Media Root
Favorite Flowers Graphing (Social Studies and Math)	I'm a Little Flower Pot Rhyme
Preschool Activities: Media Root	Preschool Activities: Media Root
Flowers Word Wall	The Surprise Sight Words Emergent Reader