Happy Tuesday!! Tomorrow is Wednesday, which for me means tomorrow is Early Day!! <the student leave at 2:00, we stay until 3:45> Early Day is awesome! Do you have anything like that in your school?
Today I wanted to share with you something I have tried out in my classroom. This is an activity one of my teamies <my shorthand for team mates> found on Pinterest. Our main focus in science is an in-depth study of the tree. We spend all year with this as our main focus, and this means that we get to really dig into all things tree-related. One of the best parts about getting to focus on trees all year long is that we get to observe the trees as they change throughout the seasons. In my part of the U.S., we get to experience all four seasons as well as how they change from one to the next. Gotta love that temperate climate!! Right now we are focusing on how trees change from summer to the fall, as well as the reasons behind the changes. While we were planning on different ways to help our kinders understand the main parts of the tree (roots, trunk, branches, leaves), my teamie found this activity on Pinterest. <click on the picture to head over the my Pinterest board where I have this pinned! Follow me while you're there!!>
As a team we decided to give this activity a try. I pre-cut the strips into the bags, and I think I may have cut my strips too long. One of my teamies cut hers shorter and her kiddos had a much easier time getting the trees created.
I had this graphic up on the SMART Board while they were working, and I also walked them through the process step-by-step while modeling with another bag.
Here's what my sample looked like.
I don't have as much of a trunk as the one in the diagram, and I'm thinking the reason is because I cut the strips down too far. Next year I won't make that mistake again!! My teamie also made some labels for them to add to their trees once they were finished with the leaves.
I gave each student a square of red, orange, and yellow construction paper. They were to tear their leaves from those pieces, and glue the leaves to the branches of their tree. Some of my Dragons glued their entire square to a branch...so much for diagrams!! :-) Still, I think they had fun making it!!
My kinders worked hard on this activity and they were SUPER excited to get to take them home and share them with their families. My kiddos get SO EXCITED whenever they get to take something home that they worked on in school. Do your littles get excited to take things home?
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