Once Upon a Book ~ Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!

Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!

by Candace Fleming

Summary: Mr. McGreely had always dreamed of planting his very own garden. Once he decided to get his hands dirty and begin planting, he had to battle three hungry bunnies that would gnaw at his vegetables. No matter what Mr. McGreely did, the little bunnies would munch away in his garden. Once he finally thought he had outsmarted the bunnies for good, they in fact, outsmarted him!

Bible Verse

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:16

Craft

The boys made their very own garden plans based on the Square Foot Garden. The boys got to plan out their very own imaginary garden with all of their favorite fruits and veggies. You can see more of their garden plans as well as download the printable template here. {Can you tell that one of my boys LOVES celery, i.e. the little green pieces of yarn?}



Math

We integrated math into our garden plans. After the boys finished their plans, I asked them various questions like:

• How many carrots did you plant?
  
• Did you plant more strawberries than pumpkins?
  
• How many more tomatoes than squash did you plant?
  
• What did you plant the most of?
  
• Which do you have more of…lettuce or cucumbers?
  
• Which do you have less of…celery or blueberries?

Dramatic Play

We used our garden plans to act out part of the book. Like the Mr. McGreely we tried to keep our bunnies {foam rabbit shapes} out of our garden! We built a fence using our Zoobs to try to keep the bunnies out. This made for extra practice with motor skills and patterning.



We built a brick wall to try to keep the bunnies out. Positioning the “bricks” on the box to make the wall allowed for spatial awareness as well as extra practice with scissors and glue.



We even added a moat in our failed attempts at keeping the bunnies out. The boys worked on their fine motor skills by tearing apart pieces of blue scrap paper for the water.



All of the boys thoroughly enjoyed letting the bunnies muncha muncha muncha on all the yummy vegetables!

Science

Plant a garden! The boys helped me plant our garden and had a blast. Although we did not plant all of the same fruits and veggies that they included on their garden plan, they were still thrilled to be able to help out and are anxiously anticipating our first harvest of the season!

Fingerplay

My Garden Grows

My Garden Grows {extend one hand with palm up}
I’ll rake it with care. {make raking motion on palm with three fingers from other hand}
And then some seeds I’ll plant there. {point finger on palm to plant seeds}
The sun will shine. {make circle with hands}
The rain will fall. {flutter fingers like falling rain}
My garden will bloom and grow straight and tall. {cup hands and extend in the air}

Snack

Carrots of course! For a super fun carrot snack, be sure to check out this super cute carrot garden!

For more fun, check out the Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! lapbook at Homeschool Share.

Want to see what's coming next (and books we've done in the past)? Click here to see our Once Upon a Book webpage!