Tops & Bottoms Garden

Early morning I was gathering supplies for our lesson when O and Baby C came out with aprons on and another idea completely. There's was so fully loaded, I dropped my lesson plan and went with them!

 
'Market Play' seems like a simple concept, but it's packed with learning opportunities not to mention, just plain fun.
O wanted to fill their apron pockets with coins, the real deal, so emptied the Bus Money jar! A few currencies were floating around, so we got to talk about coins and countries.
They categorized the fruit and veggies for sale, created price mark-ups (seriously inflated fruit and veg!), provided change (albeit, more than the customer provided in the first place!). They even delved in the world of fractions, using the velcro fruit in the mix.

Once they closed shop for the day, we read the fantastic, 'Tops & Bottoms' about a lazy bear who goes into business partnership with a money-hungry rabbit. Every planting season the bear picks Top's or Bottom's and every harvest the rabbit has tricked him, giving him the tops of carrots, beets and radishes, or the bottoms of lettuce, celery and broccoli!

The author-illustrator, Janet Stevens has even handmade her own paper and cleverly arranged the vegetables on the top or bottom of the page!

Finally for lunch, we made vegetable soup, bringing the activities full circle.