Great Big Basket o' Veggies!

It's harvest time in the garden again, and everything is producing. Every year in August I bring a big basket full of fruits and vegetables to the library to talk about with the kids. I have some great veggie eaters in my storytime group. Judging from their responses, they like every kind of fruit and vegetable.

Everything in the basket pictured here grew in my garden, except for the carrot. That came from the Farmers' Market. (There were two carrots, and more peppers and squash before I cut them up for the craft.  I should have taken the picture before storytime instead of after.)

Most of these items I picked just this morning. You can see corn, onions, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, basil, peaches and plums. And a cantaloupe. We talked about the different shapes and colors, about how not all tomatoes are red, and how peppers come in almost all colors.

We read two of my favorite veggie tales: Up, Down, and Around, by Katherine Ayres, and Growing Colors, by Bruce McMillan. On the flannelboard I put up pictures of fruit and we sang:

Strawberries, Peaches, Watermelon too
Good for me and good for you.
They are yummy, they are sweet,
They are such a tasty treat.
Strawberries, Peaches, Watermelon too
Good for me and good for you.   (sing to the tune of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star")

Then I held up various vegetables and we sang:

"Tomatoes, corn, and green beans too . . . "  and then  "Cucumbers, cantaloupe, peppers, too. . . . "  There's no end to the combinations you can sing about.  Seems to me this would be a good song to sing when you want to get your kids revved up to eat their vegetables.

We made zucchini prints for our craft. See last year's entry for pictures and instructions, including how to make paint stamp pads that can be stored in the refrigerator.