Go, Go Grapes: A Fruit Chant Summary

At 9am the teacher started reading a book titled “Go, Go, Grapes: A Fruit Chant” by April Pulley Sayre. The students were sitting on the rug all facing the teacher. The teacher opened the book and asked the students “who knows what this is?” (pointing to a picture in the book). Many of the students called out and said cherries. The teacher started reading the book. The students begin moving around on the rug and talking to each other. The teacher then interrupts and says, “I’m waiting… still waiting” until all the children had calmed down and drew their attention back to the book. After a few pages of different fruits a student called a lime a lemon. The teacher then explains that they are different fruits and you can tell by their color. She finishes the book and asks the class “what is one example from the book you remember?” and most the students’ hands went up in the air. The teacher calls on students and they repeat a fruit they remember from the book. After all the students with their hands up are called she asks, “what is different between a fruit and a vegetable?” no student answers so she rephrases her question. “what is on the inside of fruits that are not in vegetables?”. One student calls out “seeds”. The teacher then gets a

plum and cuts it open for the students to see the inside of the plum.
At 9:15am the students went back to their seats for snack time. The assistant teacher had placed animal crackers on plates while the students were listening to the book. A student with the job of snack helped went to the assistant and was handed a plate to bring to a student. This process happened until all students had a plate of animal crackers. The teacher sat at a table of three students. The teacher turns to a student and asks him “How many animal crackers do you have?”. He counts eight of them and the teacher replies “This is excellent counting”. The other students at the table looked eager to count their crackers also. So, the teacher turns to the other boy and asks how many crackers he has left. The boy responds seven. The teacher then asks, “if you take away three of the crackers how many do you have left?”. The boy moves three crackers to the other side of his plate and recounts the remaining crackers. As the boy is counting a girl is lining up her crackers to do a take away question with the teacher, the teacher sees this and says, “beautiful technique”.
At 9:30am most of the students are done with their snacks so they sing songs about plants which is their monthly theme.

The teacher used the rhythm of “The Farmer in the Dell” but replaces some of the words to make it about plants. The teacher starts singing “The farmer plants the seeds; the farmer plants the seeds. Hi-ho the dairy-o the farmer plants the seeds”. Most of the students perked up and start singing the rest of the song with the teacher. The next song the class sings is to the rhythm of “I’m a Little Teapot” but the words again were replaced to make the song about spring, rain, and plants growing. During this song, every student sang along. This song included a lot about how important sun and rain is to growing

plants.
After the students were done singing about plants around 9:45am the teacher took out a bar graph that the class had made the day before. The bar graph was titled “Which Color Travels the Fastest to our Flowers”. The assistant takes three vases with a flower in each out of their discovery center. The flowers that were white the day before are now red, green, and blue. The teacher reminds the student, “Most of you predicted that green would travel the fastest”. She asks the class “Which color is the brightest?” a child answers green. She then asks, “Which color is the least bright” a child answers red”. The teacher says, “In conclusion, all the flowers soak up the color at the same speed”. A student calls out and says, “That means we were all right” and the teacher confirms that all their predictions were right.