We continue to learn different aspects about trees and to cross of our
Content Learning Objectives for the week.
- Identify and describe animals that climb the trees.
- Describe which parts of the trees can be used for building.
- Identify things that are made of wood.
- Identify the colors found in trees.
- Identify things that grow on and fall from trees.
- Describe ways to tell the age of a tree.
- Identify which parts of trees can be used for writing
On Day 3 we talked about what colors can be found on a tree. Then we did some painting of trees. First I prepared 3 pieces of blue paper with masking tape. I taped off shapes of trees. Then we went outside and the boys painted the whole page with a pom pom in a clothespin.
See brother, I painted my hand.
And I am still painting my hand. He did eventually get back to painting the paper.
This was a great task for them. They really had to focus on getting the whole page covered in paint. Peter borrowed a little red paint from brother to add some more color to his painting.
This picture I just have to add because he is cute.
When the paint dried I pulled the masking tape off and it revealed their trees. I made one of Peter's trees have a P in it. They seemed to think it was almost magical as the trees appeared.
Skipping a day here, but on Day 5 we learned about writing with trees. This was another eye opener, that our pencils were made with trees.
Mother Goose Time gave us this awesome game called
Finding Tree Letters.
I love this picture. He is checking with me to see if he grabbed the right letter.
The game is pretty simple. The tree cards have a mixed up alphabet on them. Each card had about half of the alphabet, so Peter had one half and Lachlan the other. You put the orange BINGO chips over the letters. This makes it look like an orange tree. The goal is to pick all of your oranges first.
I had a stack of alphabet cards and shuffled them. I would draw a letter and say the letter name with out showing them the card. I wanted them to hear the name of the letter and find it on their own, from their recollection. But you could make this game a little easier by holding up the card for everyone to see.
The cool part about this game is that it made it really clear which letters they are struggling with. It was an assessment of sorts. I should have written them down. I know for sure Q, G and K were still a bit tricky for Lachlan. Now we know what to practice.
Lachlan picking the last orange off of his tree.
This is such a great concept that I am sure could be easily recreated at home. I think the BINGO chips are key, so you can see the letters underneath. If you can get your hands on those you could free hand a tree on a piece of paper and use alphabet flash cards to shuffle and draw at random.
We played this game 4 times. They each won two times. But Peter won the last round so Lachlan got upset. He was also really tired. That was the end of our game.
Since Lachlan was upset, he left the table. But Peter and I continued with one more activity for the day. He worked on his
Draw and Dictate page. I just recently read a book about the steps of learning to write. I didn't realize how important story telling is in the process. If you think about it, we don't talk like we write for the most part. So it's a big deal for a child to dictate sentences to you as he tells a story.
Peter's story was about a boy named Peter who was climbing an orange tree. He picked an orange and then fell but he landed on a flat branch where he sat and ate his orange. As he told me the story I helped him to form his ideas into sentences. What a great first step to someday writing on his own.
Writing is such a natural and common part of my day, that I often forget where I started. It's fun to see where our children's minds begin and how they develop. There is no better way to see get a glimpse of your child's mind then by having them tell you a story. I enjoy it every time!
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