Edited: 12/5/23

Gardening Time is a bilingual English-Vietnamese photo book written for young readers with kindergarten to first grade reading level with familiar sight words.

Before reading: Do you have a garden in your backyard? Do you help your mom and dad in the garden? What kind of activity can you do during gardening time? Discuss the title and make predictions what this book will be about. Flip through the pages and discuss what’s going on in each picture. Remind reader to use picture clues and sounding out-strategy to decode unfamiliar words. Review high-frequency words or sight words. Discuss vocabulary words.

High-Frequency Words:

• like
• to
• pick
• the
• it
• is
• and
• pick
• pink
• with
• purple
• for
• both
• play
• help
• mom
• go
• very

Vocabulary words:

• garden
• time
• water
• flowers
• plant
• mess
• dirt
• shovel
• fruit
• tree
• guava
• calomondin
• pepper

During Reading: Pause at the end of each page to discuss what’s going on in the picture. “What do you see? What sight words do you see is on this page?”

After reading: Discuss the activities Grace and Ethan did during gardening time. “What did they like to do? What is your favorite part of the story?”

Writing Response: “Now it’s your turn to writing about your gardening time. Imagine you have a garden in your backyard. Write two to five sentences about the things you can do to help your parents in the garden. Illustrate a picture for your story.”

Art Response: Kids can draw a picture of them in the garden with crayons, and then use watercolor paints to fill in the white space, or use construction paper to construct or build a flower.