Gardening Activities

Gardening is a wonderful lesson to include in classrooms of all ages.  Children love feeling the dirt, watching bugs, and other curious activities.  This lesson not only teaches where our food comes from and the importance of nutrition, but also teaches about nature and how to work as a team.

Making their own garden is a fun activity for all children.  This can be done very affordably by recycling household items into gardening supplies and containers.  Paper cups and egg cartons make excellent pots for sprouting.  This allows children to watch sprouts as they first begin to grow and initiates discussions.  This is an excellent time to explain to children what plants need to grow and the correlation between a seedling and a growing child.  Milk cartons and jugs make excellent watering cans and having each child bring in their own watering container teaches them ownership.  This allows each child to contribute to watering the garden and working together for one purpose.  This helps the kids to interact with each other and work as a team.  Moreover, digging holes, watering plants, and weeding help to improve gross motor skills.

A fun addition to your gardening lessons is to create a meal from the foods you have grown at the end of the season.  For example, growing tomatoes, onions, herbs, etc. will allow you to make pasta sauce or pizza sauce for a class meal.  This teaches the children where their food comes from and can lead into a discussion on the importance of farmers and good nutrition.

Food gardens are fun, but not the only option out there.  A butterfly garden is an excellent idea to teach observational skills and life cycles.  In order to do this, grow plants that are appealing to butterflies.  Instruct the children to take notes of the different colors of butterflies, different markings, sizes, etc.  You can then have a group discussion on their favorite butterflies and what they saw.  If constructed at the right time, you can display caterpillars and their life cycle into a beautiful butterfly.  These lessons can also be made more detailed and science-oriented for older students.

Lastly, other lessons can always be incorporated into any of these activities.  Language and alphabet lessons can be intertwined by including garden related coloring sheets.  Flash cards and labels can be constructed with helpful phonetic lessons such as G is for garden, C is for carrot, and so on.  Wood Designs' bins and lids are the perfect containers for gardening supplies and organization.

Gardens are an excellent year long activity that teaches children many things.  Social interaction and team work are beneficial lessons learned in the process along with plant and animal life cycles.  Nutritional lessons and tasty meals can also result from fun garden time inside and outside of the classroom.  All in all, great lessons that are fun and informative will liven up your curriculum and help students process in new ways.

Teaching with Puppets

Wood Designs offers a wide variety of Puppet Theaters.

Puppetry is the use of inanimate objects in the form of a living character.  This is most commonly done by the use of finger or hand puppets.  Puppets have been used for over four thousand years as forms of entertainment and education.  Time has proven they are an excellent way to initiate a discussion or teach lessons to young students. 

Puppets are a great tool with small children because they mimic play time while delivering knowledge.  The use of puppets can get even the most hyper child’s attention and ease the delivery of information.  Children enjoy the colorful looks of puppets and their distinctive personalities.  One way to deliver a lesson would be to have a cast of puppets teaching addition or singing a song about learning colors.  Engaging children with this imaginative play is an excellent way to educate them while keeping it lighthearted and entertaining.

Puppetry is also wonderful for social development and the delivery of important rules.  For example, if a child treats another student poorly or teases, it may be helpful to use puppets as a way to explain why this is not a nice way to behave.  A great use of puppetry would be to act out the problematic situation with the puppets in the classroom and have the students and puppets suggest better ways to handle the situation.  This allows the children to know what is acceptable behavior and how to handle a situation when the rules are not followed without embarrassing the child who might have misbehaved.

Another great past time is to allow the children to create their own puppets and puppet shows.  Finger puppets are easily constructed with paper, felt or cloth being wrapped around the finger and decorated.  Larger puppets can be purchased or cut out of paper and taped or glued to popsicle sticks.  Even making sock puppets can be a creative outlet for kids. Allowing children to decorate and make up stories with their own puppets can also be just as beneficial by enabling them to tell a story or ask a social question without anxiety. 

Wood Designs manufactures puppet theaters that are excellent for housing your puppets and providing a stage to play on.  These are available in two different sizes and can be purchased with chalkboard, marker board or flannel board fronts.  There is appropriate shelving in the back of the unit to allow for puppet or prop storage.  These theaters are great for interactive play and provide a natural look. 

The Power of Music

Have you ever wondered why kids often learn their alphabet by singing the ABC’s?  Music is a very powerful teaching tool.  Neurobiologists have found that music exists in every culture.  Parents in every country sing to their children and teach them through music.  This is because of many reasons.  Most children’s songs are filled with alliteration and rhymes.  This helps children to recognize sounds of different words and to increase their vocabulary.  Often, teachers find it beneficial to use music to teach phonics because of this reason.  The repetition in music is also helpful because it implants facts and phrases firmly into a child’s memory.  Most of us can still recite catchy songs about state capitols or the names of the presidents that helped us to remember important factoids.  This is because music drives deep into the brain and is easily stored and recalled.  Because of this, large amounts of information can be processed, stored, and recalled by the brain when memorized through the use of music.

Wood Designs WD12990 Bookshelves are perfect
for storing music instruments and music books.

Research has shown that music stimulates brain function.  It readies the brain to absorb knowledge.  This may be a key reason why music is so helpful in teaching children with disabilities.  Children with language and learning difficulties benefit from phonetic songs teaching spelling.  The music and melody holds their attention while imprinting linguistics.  Teaching your child to “self-talk” through a difficult word by singing a song can greatly help with their reading lessons.

Music is also a great way to control behavior in children.  Classical music or jazz can help to calm a hyper or upset child and may assist with nap time as well.  Energetic music is an excellent way to get a child’s attention and get them to engage more.  Incorporating the use of musical instruments, clapping, and dancing can keep the attention of younger students and be more effective than a typical lesson.  With older students, including a song with a history lesson makes a bigger impact for the students.  With music, children are learning without knowing they are learning!  This is effective for both the teacher and the student. 

The Naptime Struggle

Nap time.  Some dread it, some can’t wait for it to arrive.  Many adults would probably be thrilled to have a nap in the middle of their work day, but unfortunately they are usually reserved for the youth. Either way, it’s a much needed part of a child’s day.  Napping allows their bodies and minds to recharge, while improving sour moods.  It has also been theorized that nap time aids cognitive developement  and physical growth by allowing the body some time to rest and recuperate from activity.  Missing nap time can lead to crankiness and a decrease in physical activity.  Medical research has even found a connection between missed sleep in children and childhood obesity.


So how do you facilitate the nap?  It is important to first create an environment conducive to sleep.  If possible, place the children in the quietest part of the room and dim the lights.  Most children go to sleep easier with relaxing music played at a moderate level.  If your classroom is near a noisy room, soothing music can help to drown out the noise as well.  Reading a short story can also help to get children ready for a nap.  Some teachers find it helpful to place glow in the dark shapes or stars on the ceiling of the classroom to give children something to look at while drifting away.  Always be consistent with your routine so the kids know what to expect.


A comfortable resting place is also needed to initiate sleep.  The cots offered by Wood Designs are perfect for this situation!  Our cots stack vertically for efficient use of space and are extremely comfortable.  Wood Designs’ cots are made from anti-sagging nylon material to provide your little students with a relaxing bed to sleep on and allow easy removal for washing.  Adding a child’s favorite blanket or stuffed animal can also help to initiate a comforting environment to sleep in.


The nap time battle can be tiresome, but naptime is very much needed for both teacher and student.  Try to figure out what tactics work best for your children and adapt as needed.