Plant a Seed in My Garden

england

HISTORY AND SONG NOTES

Plant a Seed in My Garden is a folksong from England. This story song works well as a group movement activity, and also as a beginning musical dramatic play activity.

Group Movement Game

This game works well as a group movement activity, where the children and teachers go through the movements that are indicated in each verse. As this song is generally smooth and not too fast, this is an opportunity for the teacher to model musical concepts throughout the activity by moving smoothly, along with the music.

You may want to introduce the activity by passing out imaginary “seeds” to the class, and inviting them to come and help you plant a springtime garden.

Verse 1: Plant a seed… Use your fingers to pinch an imaginary seed from your other hand, and then bend down, “planting” it in the ground.

Verse 2: Rain, come water… Reaching up high, and wiggling your fingers down to the ground to show the raindrops.

Verse 3: Sun, come shine… Making a circle shape, like the sun, over your head with your arms, sway from side to side.

Verse 4: Flowers, come grow… Crouch down, and then slowly rise up to standing, spreading your arms and fingers to show the flower petals and leaves growing.

Verse 5: Friends, come dance… dance!

Musical Dramatic Play Activity

Preschool aged children enjoy building dramatic play activities from story songs like this one. A first step for younger children could be to try integrating props into the game, such as scarves to show the flower petals, or small blocks or manipulatives to stand in for the seeds, which then can be built into the flower shapes.

Often children will delve into dramatic play independently, and quite easily. To encourage this, the teacher can begin by asking the children questions that encourage them to share their ideas, such as “what should we plant in our garden today?” or “should we plant vegetables or flowers?” or “I see the flowers growing, what colors do you see?”

You may also try pausing between the verses, which allows the children time to further explore the actions of each verse. This could include discussions of what they are planting, or that there is a raincloud forming and let’s grab our rain boots, let’s go jump in this rain puddle…

It also works well to insert other thematic songs in between the verses, such as The Itsy Bitsy Spider after the rain verse, or Sunny Weather, Windy Weather after the sun shining verse.

Once you have established the game, the children will have many ideas how to further expand the story. Enjoy!