Before I knew it the kids were trying to bring me every leaf they thought was beautiful! My hands were so full of leaves everytime I took them outside! We created a chart to find out what they wondered about leaves and trees and noticed that after the initial wondering about trees, they started wondering about how paper was made from trees and what other things were made from trees. This was unexpected so I tucked that information into my mind to come back to later!
We went outside and documented the beautiful Ash trees in our playground. They documented what they noticed and labeled the parts of the tree.
Back in the room they documented what they noticed about trees and leaves in many different ways during our exploration time!
Through clay sculptures...
Through paintings...
Through art by creating leaf people...
Through music by writing a song about leaves and performing it for the class...
Through making leaf rubbings and painting over them with water color...(they also created individual leaf rubbings and labeled the parts and colors of their leaf but I didn't get any photos)
Measuring leaves with different items and recording how long they were...
And making patterns with leaves!
One girl built a forest in the block area using natural blocks I made from a cedar tree and dried leaves, but it all fell over before I could take a picture!
There were many opportunities for the students to practice their speaking and listening skills as they presented ways they documented what they noticed about leaves!
We have also been noticing the weather changes that have been happening as the fall season unfolds! We all had to break out the warm coats this week!
As the interest in leaves is starting to wan, we went to their wonderings about how paper is made from trees...but I will save that for the next post!
I am so excited to use this!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad!
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