Lesson Plans

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Use a Utensil Tray for Sensory Play

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I love this idea for an easy way to set up a small world or sensory play tray for a kid using a plastic utensil tray.

Head to Hello Wonderful to see it in action and get all the details, but this is such a cute way to do a play area for a single child. It’s small so it’s easy to fill with a few different items, and kids can easily reach and play with everything in this little bin.

The idea shown is for a dinosaur themed small world/sensory play box, but you could do this with all sorts of themes, from space to holidays or anything else you can think of. Add some themed books and you’re all set for an afternoon of exploration.

[Photo: Hello Wonderful.]

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Resources for Learning about George Washington Carver

March is Peanut Month, so it’s a great time to spend some time learning about the life and legacy of George Washington Carver. While he is known as a scientist who explored many different uses for the peanut, he also worked to help diversify agriculture among Black farmers, encouraging crop rotation and natural fertilization methods to enrich the soil.

He “creative chemistry” methods resulted in more than 280 products that could be made from peanuts as well as more than 150 made from sweet potatoes. You can read a full bio and learn about some of these products from Tuskegee University. This slide presentation covers his early life as well as his work in agriculture, science and has some activities like fact/opinion, similarities and differences and a quiz for kids to take at the end.

Calm and Wave has a unit study for George Washington Carver on Teachers Pay Teachers, but their blog post has some good information and resources, too.

Another great mini history lesson found on Teachers Pay Teachers is from Look We’re Learning. Her blog post goes into a lot of detail about what’s included.

The Mailbox has a mini booklet you can print that has space for kids to draw picture related to his life.

If you want to get into peanuts, you can plant peanuts and learn more about how they grow, or make this paper plate peanut plant craft from Happy Toddler Playtime.

Here are a few more quick projects and printables to use when you’re doing a George Washington Carver unit:

My blog post linked at the very top has some books you might want to check out to learn more about him. And if your kiddos can handle peanuts, throwing in some peanut themed snacks would be a great way to round out a GWC day!

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