Gr PreK-3.Īnother 'This is the House That Jack Built' using the combined skills of Arnold and Anita Lobel tells of a simple incident in a garden.

The Rose in My Garden by Arnold Lobel.

A beautifully crafted story illustrated by Caldecott Award winner Erin E. It seems everything will always be brown until suddenly, 'It's Spring!' The tone here is quiet, almost solemn. Gr PreK-2.įind this book: Local Bookstore, Amazon, B&NĪ boy and his dog plant some seeds, and wait, and wait.

And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano.

This classic, first published in 1970, is a great introduction to the life-cycle of flowering plants but also a beautiful philosophical look at life. Obstacles abound, but one seed is able to grow to maturity where it faces more perils. It's fall and the seeds are being blown along by the wind. We follow a seed from birth to flower to seed again. It's a great introduction to how beautiful and delicate science can be.

The text, in a flowery script, gives some basic and some quirky facts but the stars here are the paintings. Luminous watercolor and ink illustrations display an impressive variety of bird, insect, reptile, crustacean, fish, amphibian and dinosaur eggs. An Egg Is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston.Wonderful for honing observation skills for drawing or science endeavors. This is also a great book for connecting the art and science curriculum with its beautiful paintings reminiscent of nature journals kept by many amateur and professional naturalists.

Use it to spring board an activity brainstorming similar adjectives to describe something else (food, animals, months, etc.) or to model a descriptive poem structure students can use to write a descriptive poem of their own. The patterned text which uses successive adjectives to describe different qualities or stages in the lives of seeds is great for language arts activities about adjectives and description. It's also wonderful for sorting activities with it's accurate illustrations of many types of plants and seeds.

It's a great book to use for opening a unit on plants or gardening. This is a wonderfully indulgent treatment of seeds and their differing qualities as well as the life cycle of plants. Beautiful illustrations show seeds next being secretive (lying dormant for a season or for years), fruitful (encased in blueberries and papayas), naked (in pine cones), in many sizes (from dust to 60 pounds), adventurous (scattered by the wind or floating in water), inventive (sticking to sneakers), generous (providing food for the new sprout), ancient, thirsty, hungry, clever (photosynthesis) and finally awake. We start with a beautiful opening page spread showing sunflower seeds nestled within the center of a ripe sunflower head. This is a gorgeous picture book from the same author/illustrator team that brought us An Egg Is Quiet (see below).

A Seed Is Sleepy by Sylvia Long