Preschool Corner: Deciduous Trees Unit

Caleb Is Currently 4 Years Old

We had an incredibly busy Preschool week this week. Caleb just did not want to stop. We did school Mon through Thurs and then Mama called a halt. Whew! I am so thankful that he loves school though. Let's hope that lasts.

Math: We do Calender Time every morning. This consists of much more than just the calender. I'll have to post about it sometime. Part of our time is counting and shapes. Caleb knows his basic shapes, so we are now working on 3D. Here he is with his beloved pointer identifying the shapes as I call them out.

Bible: We have a Bible Memory Verse that is also a part of Calender Time. It is posted on the wall in our schoolroom. I get many of our verses from Hubbard's Cupboard. She has such nice posters and they are all set to familiar tunes.

Writing: Caleb has recently discovered that he loves mazes. This is great because he hates writing. So we will just do lots of mazes for that type of practice. Kumon has some great easy and intermediate maze books for children.

Art/Crafts: I recently put together some open ended art materials for Caleb. This week he made lots of collages. He loves to cut and play with glue.

Deciduous Trees Unit (Science and Nature Study): This week and next week we will be studying Deciduous Trees. Shinning Dawn Books has many wonderful nature studies. I have used parts of their Delightful Deciduous Trees unit as well as many of my own ideas. Here Caleb is labeling the parts of a tree while sitting outside under our Maple. That is her name by the way. Maple is a beloved part of the family. Caleb watches her all the time, plays under her, talks to her, climbs her...

Another activity we will be doing during this unit, is with a big foam tree on the wall in our schoolroom. We add parts to it as we learn about them. This week we focused on roots, trunk and bark. You can see Caleb adding water drops and an owl's home in the pictures below.

Caleb also learned about the rings in a tree's trunk. We talked about how you can tell their age as well as the type of weather (very wet/dry) from each year of the tree's life by looking at the tree rings.

I just threw this picture in cause it makes me smile.

We observed the bark on a tree with a magnify glass and filled out a notebooking page about what we saw. The page was from Delightful Decidous Trees. You can see some pretty cool things on and in bark: spiders, moss, spider webs, bug holes, pretty colors, cool textures and more! This picture is after we were done. Caleb spent some time laying on the ground looking through his magnify glass. I tried to explain that it does not work like binoculars, but whatever makes you happy.

We had a great school week! Head on over to Preschool Corner and check out what everyone else did too.