Learning to keep our hands to ourselves

Today we taught the kids about the water cycle and how it affected our plants and their growing process. After playing the rain game with the kids we walked around the garden and they were in aw of the growth over the last couple weeks. We talked about how they need water and the cycles involved. The kids were so intrigued with the vegetables that they could not keep their hands off of them. Once they saw the eggplant and tomatoes they were excited and almost uncontrollable. They wanted to touch and grab at each plant. Turning your back for a moment we had two green tomatoes off their vine. We used this to teach the kids more about cycles and the seeds inside of them. We explained to them that this was unacceptable and they the veggies were not done growing. They seemed to understand that we could not pick the plants until they were ripe and ready to be eaten. They kids then ventured over to the aloe plant and were very interested. I found a piece that was detached and broke it into smaller pieces for all the kids. I explained that the aloe plant does not get watered because it was a desert plant. Deserts do not receive much water so we mustn't over water the plant. With one of the classes we discussed Thanksgiving and talked about what vegetables they had and where they might have come from. It is amazing to see how much the kids are learning and remember from previous lessons. They are all becoming more involved and inquisitive about the garden.