Tree Activities to Celebrate Tu B'Shevat

This week, the class did some different tree related activities to celebrate Tu B'Shevat, the birthday of the trees. In our first activity, the children acted out the parts of a tree. Ben is the heart wood. Colin, Will, Zach and Dylan are the bark. Alex, Evie, and Iya are the roots and Jack, Lilly and Norah are the branches.  Each "part" had a different sound effect too!

After being a tree, we took the children outside to lay under a tree. We did this activity so the children could look at a tree from a new perspective.  We received some interesting answers as to what the children saw from this view!

When we came inside, the children were able to explore and build with all sizes of branches in the block area.  The children had some definite ideas about the kinds of structures that they could make with the thick, thin, long and short branches.

  When the children came to school on Thursday, they signed in by using cubes to measure their branches. Looks like Reese is ready to join in the Curious George fun!

Ben and Calvin are checking to see if Ben's cubes are equal to the length of his branch.

Norah counted her cubes to make sure she could tell us the length of her branch.

Alex's branch had a small curve,but using problem solving skills, she weighted each end with her hands in order to measure her branch.

Jack and Ben were using the skill of observation as they watched Dylan measure his branch.

Iya used the skill of estimation as she put together the number of cubes she guessed that she would need before actually measuring her branch.

Lilly's branch was the only one that had leaves.  She could have removed the leaves before measuring her branch, but she decided that her branch would be longer if she measured the branch to the top leaf.

The children joined us on the rug were we ordered their branches by the number of cubes each child counted. The children had to remember the number of cubes that they had counted, and then place their branch in order from longest to shortest.

We took the children in to the hall and asked them to stand where they thought the length of the cubes would end. After that we brought all the branches and placed them besides the cubes to see if the length of all the branches would equal the length of the cubes. The children were very proud of their math skills!

Our final math question. We asked the children if they laid beside the cubes would they be longer than all   twelve branches.  They guessed the answer, but it was fun to confirm their guess!

All the activities with the trees and their branches provided the children opportunities to celebrate Tu B'Shevat through exploration and discovery. When you walk into our room, you will see that we even connected the birthday of the trees to art, as we made a unique mobile with all our branches!