DJ Dashboard, Play A Song For Me

Today was Pre-school group. I spent a good chunk of time this week getting prepared for it. For the past two years my son (and sometimes daughter, but usually she's in school) and I have gotten together with some friends to have some learning/fun time together. The moms in the group (there are 5 of us) take turns planning and running the group. We meet twice a month, usually at our library up the hill. Well, the library meeting room was booked, so we met at my house. Since I'm in a gardening/spring mind set I thought it would be fun for the kids to plant something and to give them a simple lesson on growing things.
My son's duty was playing DJ. I dubbed him DJ Dashboard (he once told me "Dashboard" is his nickname). He does have great taste in children's music. Here was his line up: Children's Songs, A Collection of Childhood Favorites - Susie Tallman, Catch That Train- Dan Zanes and Here Come the ABC's- They Might be Giants. I highly recommend all three CD's.
To start out, we painted our terra cotta pots.

While the pots dried we read a book, Quiet in the Garden by Aliki. It's a whimsical story about a young boy exploring his backyard garden. The drawings of the blue-eyed little boy and his animal friends are beautiful. It turns out the boy's garden is not so quiet (much like my house). But who could complain about a home filled with music and happy, laughing children?

After story-time we stood up, stretched, and moved our bodies while we learned about photosynthesis. I wrote the following little ditty for the kids:
Plants need three things to grow
Can you tell me what they are? Do you know?
Soil, water, and sunlight
That's right!
Look there, I see a little sweet pea
She's getting very hungry
Tell her to stretch out her leaves
Stretch, stretch, stretch
Reach for the sunlight and turn it into energy!
Pho-to-synthesis
Pho-to-synthesis
Pho-to-synthesis
Photosynthesis, my friends, is a very long word for what plants do to make food
Now let's pretend we're sunflowers
With roots deep down in the ground
We're thirsty, let's add rain showers
Now we're hungry
What do we do?
We stretch, stretch, stretch
Reach for the sunlight and turn it into energy
Pho-to-synthesis
Pho-to-synthesis
Pho-to-synthesis
Wow! I feel so happy!
I have so much energy
My leaves are big and green
I'm the prettiest sunflower you've ever seen
Thanks to...
Pho-to-synthesis
Pho-to-synthesis
I love pho-to-synthesis!

Being growing plants made us hungry. Snack time! I made my world- famous (famous in my world) dried cherry cream scones. Yummy!

With the pots now being dry, we planted our yellow tulips and talked about our new found appreciation for soil, water, and sunlight.


The rest of time was spent between playing and having meltdowns (the children, not the moms). I'm sure there were some well-deserved naps taken this afternoon (children AND mothers). I just wish this mama would have been able to sneak one in!