Anna Award

This is a story about a farmer who planted a turnip. The turnip grew so large that is took a "team" to harvest the turnip. First the farmer tried, the he and his wife, thirdly the farmer, wife and the son and so on to include the dog, cat and finally the mouse. This is a book full of predictable text that children enjoy. The text encourages confidence in reading as the children learn to "predict" the words. This book also encourages teamwork and then at the end after the turnip has been harvested, the farmer and his wife prepare and share the turnip with their helpers.

I chose this book because it is a favorite of mine to read to children. I can use a chanting voice and then lower or stop my voice altogether and the child will generally finish the predictable text. I have fond memories of reading it to my head start classroom. The book is very descriptive in the fact that the children can see the pictures but the word are so descriptive that the children do not actually need the pictures to predict what will happen next.

A great science extender would be to show the children edible root vegetables that you can't see as they grow underground such as a turnip, carrot, radish, beet, and potato. They could put these vegetables in order from smallest to largest. You could also provide two or more of each vegetable so the children could sort them. Show and discuss how these vegetables grow. The children could plant some root vegetables in a clear view narrow container. The vegetables could be placed in the sensory area for the children to explore and could play "harvest the root vegetables" in dirt or even sand. One of my favorite sensory activities would be to put one or more of the root vegetables in a bag or pillowcase. A child could reach in and describe what they feel and guess which one they found.… (meer)