Trees

Trees

Length of Session: 4 Weeks 

By the end of this session, children will explore: 

• The variety of plants, bushes and trees found in our area

• Physical characteristics of those plants

• What those plants need to live

• How those plants grow and change

Overview of the Session 

Week 1 Look for different plants at the park. Count and work to identify them. Give awards to our favorite plants. Start a variety of plants in our classroom: seeds, cuttings, bulbs and tubers. 

Week 2 Dive into plant parts: stems/trunks/branches. Represent them with wire or modeling clay sculptures. Measure their lengths and circumferences--both our indoor and outdoor plants. Give various awards to plants (tallest/thickest stem/etc.)

Week 3 Dive into plant parts: leaves and roots. Represent them artistically. Give awards to different leaves and roots. 

Week 4 Dive into plant parts: Flowers and seeds. Dissect flowers to find different parts. Dissect various fruits for seeds. Celebrate with a book of all the plant awards we've given. 

Week 1

Circle time (read aloud and/or whole group activity): 

Read Aloud: Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson. 

Centers: 

Building Center: Duplos/mega blocks/Lego to build a forest

Sensory Bins: Indoor terrarium: Use a rubbermaid bin. Line it with gravel and charcoal. Dig up 2-3" of dirt and plants--with their roots--from the park (preferably under the trees where there is more decomposing matter). Kids can use magnifying glasses to explore. 

Dramatic Play: 

Library: Various books about plants/flowers/gardens

Art Center: Freely explore modeling clay. This is air-dry modeling clay, so if kids join more than 1x a week, they can spend their 2nd day coloring or painting their sculpture. We'll use the modeling clay in a more focused way during the next week, so let's give free exploration this week. 

Rug: cars/ramps/balls

Plant Center: One teacher can be stationed at a new "plant center". She should have egg carts, soil, small plastic dishes, water and paper towels. She should also have seeds, cuttings, bulbs and tubers. Children can choose one type (or more, if kids have the time/interest) to plant any way that they would like. (Info about planting each of these, although kids should be free to decide how they would like to plant theirs. It's part of the experimentation process. The teacher can plant her own traditionally and they can compare/discuss as the seeds grow.)

Outdoor Experiences (movement/science/art): 

Art: Nature Journals: colored pencils/clipcboards and stapled journals with blank paper. Kids can draw illustrations of what they observe. 

Science: Bring ribbon to the park to tie around "similar" plants. Kids can tie different colors on each type of plant. For example, red ribbons around trees, orange ribbons around bushes and pink ones around flowers. They can practice tying ribbons or use clothes pins. This can be like a scavenger hunt. Add labels to the trees if we're able...it could be a label for the specific type of tree "maple tree" or more generally "tree". Then we can count how many of each type we found. We can make a bar graph, if the kids are interested. 

Movement: Obstacle courses, balls/soccer

Additional songs: 

• Rattlin Bog

• Laurie Berkner's One Seed

• Way Up High in the Apple Tree

• 10 Little Leaves

• Sing a Song of Flowers

• Grow, Grow, Grow

• The Farmer Plants the Seeds

• Grow, Grow, Grow a Garden (Row, row, row your boat)

Week 2

Circle time (read aloud and/or whole group activity): 

Read Aloud: We Are Growing! by Laurie Keller

Centers: 

Building Center: Build our own treehouses from recyclables. Use taller recyclables such as cardboard boxes (like shoe boxes), oatmeal containers, and paper towel tubes for the "trees". Use smaller recyclables such as yogurt containers, lids and craft sticks to build the "house" parts. Expect to provide lots of tape and plastic figurines for pretend play. Explore engineering, balance and the enclosing schema. These may not be done at the end of the day/week. Save for week 3, if they are not complete yet. 

Sensory Bins: Indoor Terrarium

Plant Center: Check on how the plants are growing. Add measuring tapes, magnifying glasses, nature journals and colored pencils to represent the changes that we observe. Teachers can certainly add charts to track our measurements and print photos of how the plants are growing each weeks so that we can compare. 

Dramatic Play: 

Library: Various books about plants/gardens/flowers/growing

Art Center: Make sculptures to represent various plants. Use modeling clay, pipe cleaners, straws, or wire to model the branch/stem/trunk of a plant. Individually, ask kids to identify one plant to make a model of....a tree...a bush...a flower...maybe they use a real plant in the classroom for inspiration (flower) or a photo of a tree/bush. Ask what material would represent its trunk/branches/stem accurately? The pipe cleaner seems too bendy for a tree trunk....maybe a straw would be sturdier, like the trees we've observed...etc. Save the sculpture so that kids can continue label and add to their plant sculpture next week. We will add leaves, flowers and roots next week. 

Outdoor Experiences (movement/science/art): 

Science: Bring the measuring tapes to the park. Measure plant heights/circumferences and write them down. Give *awards* to the Most _____stems or trunks. Most tall stem. Most thick trunk. Most bumpy bark. Most smooth bark. Most short stem. Etc. They can decorate the awards too and hang them from the trees leaves (until we leave the park!). Take a photo of the tree with her award and her awarder!!

Art: Do bark rubbings on lots of different types of trees. Extend the project by turning it into a game. Ask kids to give you a rubbing and then you try to match it to the tree. They will love tricking you! Or provide "blindfolds" (bandanas) and ask them to identify trees by feeling them with their hands. Or, you can wear the blindfold, and they can trick you! 

Movement: Outdoor kitchen with spray bottles, obstacle courses, frisbee

Additional songs/stories/games: 

Same songs as last week. 

Tree yoga poses

Week 3

Circle time (read aloud and/or whole group activity): 

Read aloud: Tops and Bottoms, by Janet Stevens

Centers: 

Building Center: If kids did not complete their treehouses from last week, take them out to work on again. Materials: cardboard boxes (like shoe boxes), oatmeal containers, recyclables, lots of tape and plastic figurines. Construct the trees from the oatmeal containers/shoe box/or paper towel roll. Add to it. Explore engineering, balance and the enclosing schema. 

Sensory Bins: Indoor Terrarium

Plant Center: Check on how the plants are growing. Add measuring tapes, magnifying glasses, nature journals and colored pencils to represent the changes that we observe. Teachers can certainly add charts to track our measurements and print photos of how the plants are growing each weeks so that we can compare. 

Dramatic Play: 

Library: Various books about plants/gardens/flowers/growing

Art Center: Take out the sculptures that kids started last week. Continue to use modeling clay, pipe cleaners, straws, or wire to model the parts of a plant. After they have identified one plant to make a model of....a tree...a bush...a flower...ask what material would represent its roots/flowers/leaves accurately? I could cut leaves in the shape of the tree's leaves, but how should I add them to the branches on my sculpture? Are they just located anywhere on the branch, or are they placed strategically on the branch? What about roots? Should I add pipecleaners to the bottom of the trunk? Or draw the roots with markers? Save the sculpture so that it can dry and we can get photos!

Outdoor Experiences (movement/science/art): 

Art: Leaf rubbings. Extend the project by turning it into a game. Ask kids to give you a rubbing and then you try to match it to the tree. They will love tricking you! Try putting on blindfolds and asking kids to identify the type of leaf by feeling it. Or, you can put on the blindfold and kids can trick you!

Science: Gather lots of leaves and flowers. We should only gather leaves and flowers that have already fallen from trees. The tree needs the leaves that are still on it. We can do lots of art with the leaves that we gather--painting them, gluing them onto paper to make a "Leaf Man", etc. 

Make a solar powered oven to explore the power of the sun...similar to how a leaf soaks up energy from the sun. 

Movement: 

Mark leaves with chalk markers and hide them around the field for kids to find. Or let the kids mark them with chalk markers and hide the "treasure" for you! 

Additional songs/stories/ideas: 

Write a cooperative story about seeds. Tell kids they are going to help make up a story about a seed!

Start with "Once upon a time, some preschool children wanted to begin planting seeds. One day, Maria ________(fill in the blank from this child). Then, Cheryl thought she should ___________, etc. If the children seem to get off track, that will happen! However, give reminders as needed such as:

"So, our seed was dug up by the turtle and the bird took the turtle and the seed in the air. What happened next?" Then go on to ask the next child.

Week 4

Circle time (read aloud and/or whole group activity): 

Read aloud: The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle. Any of our other books about seeds. 

Centers: 

Building Center: Marble runs or other building block materials. 

Sensory Bins: Indoor Terrarium or a sensory bin full of various types of pine cones. 

Plant Center: Check on how the plants are growing. Add measuring tapes, magnifying glasses, nature journals and colored pencils to represent the changes that we observe. Teachers can certainly add charts to track our measurements and print photos of how the plants are growing each weeks so that we can compare. 

Library: Various books about seeds and plants 

Art Center: Put a beautiful bowl of fruit on the table and encourage kids to paint a still life of the fruit. Then allow each child to dissect a piece of fruit to look for the seeds. Where did they find it? Why is it in a fruit? How does being in a fruit help it to make a new plant? 

Extension: Use different fruit. Or put a vase of sunflowers on the table and encourage kids to paint their interpretation of them. Then allow each child to take apart sunflowers to look for the sunflower seeds. Discuss why the seeds are there and how they move from one place to another. 

Outdoor Experiences (movement/science/art): 

Art: Use grass and leaves to draw. They actually give great green pigment! Bring watercolor paper outside. Smoosh, hammer and drag the plants across them to get the pigment out. Make artwork with them!

Science: Deconstruct flowers/acorns/pine cones/helicopter seed pods. Give kids tweezers and magnifying glasses and invite them to take the seeds apart and observe what they find inside Are there seeds? What is the casing like? Why is it helicopter shaped, do you think? Why is the acorn shell so hard? 

Provide paper and glue sticks. Allow kids to rearrange the flowers/leaves/seed pods into new artwork. 

Movement: Collect fallen petals, leaves, seeds to use in our outdoor kitchen. Seed soup can have magical powers!