T is for Trees

We've really enjoyed our week doing so many different activities around trees and seasons!

  A new take on a circle collage!  Love it!  K. was much more into doing a collage with this tree in mind than if I just gave her paper background and the circles for a "free" collage.   Been tempted to do this project myself.  Really what I want to do is the 4 seasons with circle trees and maybe a black border around them all.  But since we still have one 4 seasons project in the works...and I can't find my circle cutter at the moment...we'll do it another time!

Here's a child who has "perimeter" and "magic c formation" engrained in her mind.  :-P  And another comment...those "tap and glue" caps for glue bottles really do not benefit a child.  They don't learn to control liquid glue as a child who uses a normal liquid glue cap.  That's all they used in my boys' K class.  I wasn't all that impressed.  :-D   Yes, less mess/waste but really...not as beneficial (and usually more frustration!).  Use them on occasion if you must but please use regular caps as much as possible.

Four Seasons of the Year

At calendar time we reviewed the four seasons and are learning a new song. To listen to this Four Seasons song:  http://freesongsforkids.com/audios/four-seasons.    Simple to remember the two verses and we are beginning to learn it in sign language.  So far we have introduced the words: four, seasons, Autumn, Winter, Spring and Fall.   

We did use this as a sorting activity also.  These trees can be found at...hmmm.  Well, the website address at the bottom of the printable says www.ayearoffhe.com.  But that address "can't be found" for some odd reason.  ???  I thought it was a recent save on my part but perhaps it wasn't.  Anyway...can't find this printable on any of the general google searches either.  So if someone knows where we can find this...please let me know and I'll continue to search for it also.  It's a very nice seasonal sorting activity.  My other thought was it was a link from TeachersPayTeachers.  But searched through there and didn't find it either.  Hmmm.

Back to the topic...we did review the months, as usual, but this time I led them to see that there are, in general, three months to every season.  The Months of the Year printable (Montessori for Everyone) has lovely realistic pictures that go right along with seasonal talk.  :-D

Word Family Trees

In our course of talking about trees we remembered that fruit grows on trees.  :-)  So, to help extend their thinking beyond just apple trees...we looked at various fruit trees in a magazine.  Then did this very simple activity using pears vs. apples.  I chose 5 trees/word family chunks because I wanted to reinforce short vowel sounds.  The pears each have a picture of a word that end in the family chunk.  She was able to check her work by seeing if the other words in the tree rhymed with the one she was placing there.  Good practice for rhyming!

Ten Frame

Apple Tree Recording Sheet:  http://www.heidisongs.com/free-downloads/

And why haven't I've used ten frames consistently before?  I don't know.  But I will from now on!  These are often used in the K/1 class here in town.  Another way to give children a visual representation of a number.  Lately, I've really encouraged K. to "not count" the dice when we are doing an activity that utilizes dice.  She's done really good with this...no longer has to take the time to count those itty bitty dots.  So today I introduced the 10 Frame to her.  And how I did it was through the "Flash" method.  Flashed a card, 3 seconds only, and encouraged her to make what she saw on her 10 frame.  Then she compared her frame with the flash card and recorded that she did that number.  She enjoyed this and, surprisingly, she was able to leave her dots on her frame and just change them to make the new frame, which I didn't expect her to be able to do right away.  I expected that she'd have to clear off her board and start new.  Awesome!  She immediately began to tell me that a number was "1 more than 5" or "almost to 10".  I didn't expect her to do that right away either!  When I flashed the 10 dots she said, "two five rows" and held up one hand and then the other "5+5=10".  Seriously!  I was impressed!  We will definitely be doing more 10 frame work.  Actually- next week I have something planned for that to go along with I is for icecream.

T is for Trees (Chicka Chicka Boom Boom)

Oh I just LOVE the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!  :-)  The kids really get into it and I hear them repeating parts of the book throughout the day. 

Some of the activities we did with a palm/coconut tree in mind:

This of course was when the letters all fell out of the tree.  :-)  Great book to reread!  A very simple letter formation activity we did along with our book.

www.makinglearningfun.com has the patterns to many of these paper plate stencils.  :-)

I chose to put uppercase alphabet magnets up on our magnet board because my young student was here and he's not developed in letter formation yet.  Capital letters are much easier to write.

Chicka Chicka Trees

Another activity I would have loved to do with a large class!  They would all be so different.

From left to right, 5 yrs, 2 yrs (he did ANOTHER project-actually two projects today!), and 4 yrs. We added extra fine motor with snipping the edge of the leaves and ripping the paper for the trunk.

I find that ripping paper is difficult for toddler and preschoolers so I have gotten into a habit of snipping the one side of the paper I wish for them to rip.  Works nicely.

Beginning Sound and Font Sort

A simple activity I created in Print Shop. 

A close up of one of the trees.  Sorry about the color...it really was a brown trunk!

This one really didn't have a connection except the letter portion of the Chicka Chicka book.  But I was interested in seeing how capable they would be.

The task was to use only the side of their hands to create sticks and curves to spell their name.  A little more difficult than I expected.  :-)  But they seemed to enjoy it.  And of course...

FREE EXPLORATION!

And we painted some more!

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/ has a series of easel painting visual "how to's".  Nice every once in awhile.  Good for following directions.  But, of course, there was opportunity for free exploration.  We even got a cowboy falling out of the sky!  :-D

And look who painted with us!  Wow!  :-)  His paper is a bit lower than what the other two would have had.  Theirs would have been up there with the palm tree "how-to" sheet.

T is for Trees (evergreen)

A couple other projects we did with evergreens in mind...

Theme shapes makes thing more "interesting" for some children...and definitely for the adults. We do understand that their work is important to them and so if are deciding to turn their painting into a shape-after the fact, please ask permission.  (That goes along with writing on their work.  Other options is to write on the back of their paper or on a seperate piece of paper and attach to their work.)  If they say they want to leave it "as is", respect that.  From an adult perspective...yes, their work isn't always "pretty" or "eye-catching" but it is the process that matters most.  Side note: as often as possible, let them cut out the shape.  Just draw the desired shape on the back of their art paper and they will see the lines just fine.

Since we were talking about the evergreens that are found around Ms. Amber's house, we use a small portion of the trees for painting tools.  Pine needles and etc make neat prints and designs.  If I were in a large classroom, I'd leave this tool out for a few days because they'd explore with it differently each time.  K., in the second picture, is snipping needles off of a small portion of a limb.  This was her idea that H. took to as well.  I hadn't planned it, but it worked out well.  If I HAD planned it I would have added a bit of glue to the paint so that the needles would stick better, but as it was, it did okay.  :-)

Shape Forest

Originally saw idea at http://preschoollessonplans.info/1464/reviewing-shapes-with-christmas-trees/.

We were going to use shaving cream/glue puffy paint but they decided they wanted glitter so we used a mixture of salt and glitter for "snow".  :-)  The bottom picture is my son's after he got home from school.  His own take on the project.  Didn't use the pre cut shapes at all, added mountains, river and other details. They don't have an art teacher at the elementary they go to and the classroom teachers do very little to none "true" art, especially by third grade.  :-(  So he often wants to do the project that my students have done that morning.  Wish I had time to do more in the afternoon/evening with them with art.  We usually get to it in the summer but not in the school year...just too much going on.

T is for Tree (evergreens)

Seriation Trees

Well, this was a bit of an informal assessment for the children.  Typical expectation would be that the children would be able to order three (big, medium, small) shapes.  I find that they can normally order six-eight if they experience it on a regular basis through their preschool years.  I LOVE the bottom picture.  T. actually participated!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Can't tell I'm excited, can you?!)  I've made sets of materials for him to use since he stopped taking morning naps but he always refused...just wanted to watch.  But today?!  He did this one activity.  And asked for specific colored markers to use and so I tried to mix it up a bit and give him a different color and he always corrected me.  Yes, he knows his basic colors...that's for sure!  (So his own little informal assessment-and he thought it was all a game!) 

Compound Words Evergreens

 I find it very beneficial to slip in compound word explorations in preschool.  If a child is having a hard time putting two sounds together (which is necessary for reading) than I go back to compound words because it's easier to slide together two words than it is two sounds which may be still pretty meaningless to them.  So since we were focusing on evergreen trees today...it's a great time to slip in some compound word practice.  :-)  We did the simple tree puzzles first, then pulled each side apart saying one word than the other and sliding them back together to say the compound word.  Ex)  Pan......Cake = pancake.  Having the compound word images available to see help younger students but I've done enough of this type of thing with my students that they are familiar with how this works and did not need the compound word pictures.  Then K. sounded out the word "ever" and the word "green" and we slid them together to make "evergreen". Took less than 5 minutes but great review! 

Pictures I used came from http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/2011/03/potpourri.html.