Trees and Leaves

After making the felt tree puzzle, we learned three tree songs. (The first three on that page.  I put the third poem to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle.)

We wandered in our yard and made a little collection of parts of a tree.

Bark, twigs, branches, leaves.

Then we tried to match them to some leaf shape outlines.

That was very challenging.

We watched this little interactive slideshow about trees. Bear was very attentive.

Prekinders has great ideas for anyone studying trees and forests.

I printed out the lifecycle of a tree from Prekinders.  Bear placed the cards around a circle in the correct order, then checked her work against the control.

I also printed out this leaf matching from Prekinders.  We used the leaves to play Memory.

From Prekinders, I also printed out a leaf grid game.  We used ladybug buttons from WM as counters.

Kids for Trees is very thorough, giving information about trees, lessons, and activities.  We got some ideas, like this great one to make a model of a tree, from there.

We haven't had a chance to make the leaves yet.  We used a paper towel tube for the trunk, pipe cleaners for the branches, and yarn for the roots, which you can see under the base (the ground).

I also converted two worksheets from the Kids for Trees pdfs into more Montessori-ish activities by cutting them into cards.

The first is matching trees to their shape.  I made dots on the back so Bear could check her work.

The second was matching leaf printouts to leaf shapes.  I think the leaf shape outlines with labels are from the Montessori by hand yahoo group.  The green leaves were from numerous Google searches.

Again, I put matching dots on the back so she could check her work.

We didn't have a real tree cookie to look at, but I showed Bear this image and also this one and we talked about the rings and how each ring is one year of life for the tree.  

We're not quite done with our activities yet

but

these are the concepts I hope Bear takes away from this unit:

• Trees are plants.
• Trees come in different shapes.
• Trees have leaves, a trunk, bark, branches, and roots.
• The trees' leaves make food for the tree.
• Leaves come in different shapes.
• Some trees' leaves are needles.  
• Roots absorb nutrients and water for the tree. and also help the tree stand.
• The trunk carries the nutrients and water to the leaves.
• Trees need sunlight, nutrients (soil) and water to grow.
• Trees are important because they provide food, shelter, wood to build things, paper, and oxygen

I'm linking up to Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.