When my class took an interest in plants and flowers, I set up this Garden Shop for them.
To make room in the classroom for this center, I cleared off an entire shelf and moved what was there to our storage closet. We have a Pre-K standard that says children should be able to identify coins, so I added real money to this center for the children to pretend to buy the items from the Garden Shop.
I added paper, markers, and a keyboard (cash register), and children practiced literacy and math skills by writing prices and words on receipts. I didn’t tell them to do that, but just by adding those materials to that area, children came up with the idea on their own.
I used this dollar spot basket to place some artificial flowers (dollar store), and tape a label with a price.
I used another of these dollar spot baskets to hold some packs of garden seeds. You can buy these packs for a $1.00 or less at discount stores. You can remove the seeds, but for realism, I chose to leave the seeds in the packets and put tape over the seal. That way, the kids could feel the real weight of each type of seed packet and could hear a sound when they shook them.
I added garden trowels and gloves. These are children’s trowels that I bought on clearance at the end of summer. The garden gloves were bought at the dollar store.
These baskets contain wooden bird houses (dollar store) and garden rocks or river rocks (discount store).
These boxes have children’s garden aprons and knee pads (bought on clearance at the end of summer).
These metal watering cans were bought on clearance at the end of summer. I also use these for the kids to water our class plant during the year and sometimes they water the plants in the school garden. I like them because they’re sturdy metal and won’t break if the kids step on them.
This is a children’s sized keyboard for the computer that I used for a pretend cash register. The basket has white paper strips and markers for writing receipts.
Some of the receipts the kids wrote. They copied the words and numbers from the labels that were stuck to the baskets and tubs.
This little girl made use of everything she found in the Garden Shop. She built her garden with blocks. She used the garden rocks to “plant” her flowers (she made the flowers stand up better by putting the rocks in the flower pots). She’s watering with the watering cans, and wearing the apron, knee pads, and gloves.
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I did something similar with my kinder kids, and added bark chips to our sensory table. They used that as “dirt” for potting the plants. We made a rule that you had to keep your gardening gloves on to avoid splinters.
How fun! I love this!! I think I need to steal…I mean borrow…this idea! š
I did something similar in my Pre-K class. We also put potting soil with various items (silk flowers, spoons, pots, gloves, etc) into our sensory table.
I love the store with real money. I don’t know why I’ve never tried it before. My oldest kids could probably manage it.
Your girl who used everything sounds like someone who achieved the heights of play!
Thanks for the comments & ideas for the sensory table!
I do something similar in my classroom, but I also add handmade “order forms’ which are put on clipboards for the children to use. I also have plastic tubs labeled with color words and the students sort the flowers into the tubs when they clean up. They love it! I love the knee pads in your center!
I have just the place for this! Thanks so much for the ideas.
I will be borrowing some of these ideas for our sensory table this month. In April we study bugs and flowers, and the color of the month is black. We will up with black beans (dried of course), flower pots, fake flowers, lil shovels, etc. But I love the addition of so many other accessories in your center!
A wonderful site! I teach Pre-K; our theme at the end of the month is Gardening. Thank you for the photos and ideas.
Thanks!
these great idea i will try this
i will use this idea thats great
I love this idea of a garden shop. I did something similar with my preschool class. I created a flower shop. I put various types of flowers out into separate containers. The students wrote the signs of the names of the flowers. I added tissue paper, pots, plastic bottles (vases), and cards. The students enjoyed giving flowers and cards to one another. But, I think I’ll switch it up yearly with the new idea presented here. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing your idea, Augustina!
Thanks for these great ideas. I look forward to them on facebook. Love the creativity and simplicity.
Thank you for making this information readily available. It gave me great ideas to extend the children’s learning.
Thanks, Janet!