Our new theme, Orchard Harvest, is off to a great start. Transitioning from one theme to the next is always an exciting time. A new theme means new books and toys out on the shelves, new activities and a lot of excitement.
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you Experience Early Learning for the wonderful materials.
What do we need to grow a tree? A seed, of course. Our first lesson from Orchard Harvest was seeds. During math we learned the life cycle of a tree by playing a game.
We learned that trees start out as seeds. What does a seed need in order to grow? This was a great discussion amongst my preschoolers. After caring for the seed a sprout grows. That sprout grows into a tree. The tree grows flowers and the flowers turn into fruit (in this case we looked at a fruit tree life cycle).
I had my preschoolers use the game pieces to create the life cycle on paper. After they glued the pieces down we labeled them, reviewing each stage of the cycle.
The spinner and card for this game was included in our Experience Preschool curriculum box. The children took turns spinning the spinner, working to collect each stage of the life cycle. Afterwards we extended this activity by using the pieces on paper.
During our third lesson of Orchard Harvest we learned about a part of the tree, trunks. What do you think is inside a tree trunk? We learned that a tree has rings to show its age. During our literacy lesson, Tree Ring Model, I sat out pieces of wood for them to explore as we completed our activity. I had these leftover from a Christmas project we did last year in class and they were perfect for this lesson.
We looked at a photo of a trunk, showing the rings, and I taped strips of paper to form rings to use as a model. They got to arrange the rings to look like the inside of a tree trunk.
They worked on drawing their own tree rings and then counting the rings to share the age of their tree.
During lesson three we also made tree shakers - combining art and music. Every month in our Experience Preschool curriculum box we get a new CD that correlates to the theme. This month our CD is Dancing in the Orchard.
After making their tree shakers they got to shake and march to the music.
From lesson four during our first week we learned about another part of the tree, branches. During math we measured branches from shortest to longest and longest to shortest. This was a great measurement activity for my preschoolers.
Our first week was filled with great activities for learning about the different parts of trees. They explored roots, leaves, and branches during the week. During our next set of lessons we will turn our focus to different fruit trees and will be discovering parts of fruit.
