Tu B'Shevat Theme Round-up

We (myself included) had a lot of fun
with this invitation to create a tree
with playdough, foam beads and
this free printable playdough mat.

We had so much fun and learned a lot during our Tu B'Shevat/Trees unit. We celebrated Tu B'Shevat over Shabbos and enjoyed some delicious dried fruits in its honor. My husband and son helped make some tasty fruit and vegetable smoothies beforehand as well. We completed our unit with some fun art activities, a hands-on botany experience, and some great reading and playtime. We especially loved reading PJ Library's Tu B'Shevat book Thank You Trees! written by Gail Karwoski and illustrated by Kristen Balouch. Reading Plants Feed Me by Lucy Rockwell beautifully illustrated for my son all of the many foods he gets from plants and trees throughout the year--and were an interesting reminder that we eat all parts of plants including seeds, bulbs, roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruits! (No one can argue they are or have a picky eater now!)

 We completed illustrating our own book to capture a tree in all four seasons using a variety of artistic mediums. The idea for this project was adapted from this site. He was so proud of his book and couldn't wait to share it with his Bubby who visited over Shabbat/Tu B'Shevat.
To make your own Four Seasons Tree book, simply trace and cut out the silhouette of a tree on plain white paper. To assemble, fold in half (pictured left) and staple down the center. I also doubled up and glued pages together since I had rather thin paper. I used enough sheets of paper (folded in half) to create a front and back cover and pages for each season, plus a final page (pictured right) to write/illustrate "Happy Tu B'Shevat!" We used markers, paint (with Q-tip brushes), dot markers, Kwik Stix, stickers and plastic gems to illustrate and decorate the book.

Loving those Autumn colors! He told a story as he drew about birds coming to the tree to eat bird seed treats!

 Some of our flowers from last Shabbos that we had purchased on our field trip to a nearby garden nursery were starting to wilt. Before we sent them along the next route of their journey from soil to store to table and back (eventually) to soil, we decided to become botanists and explore the parts of this plant with a fun flower dissection activity. He was totally engrossed in cutting leaves and stems, plucking flowers and pulling apart petals and closely observing all of the parts of our wilting tea roses!


The whole family got involved in this (literal) Family Tree art together activity. We used the tree poster that had been hanging on a door for vertical work over the last couple of weeks and added our own doodles, drawings and stickers to complete it. We all love doing process art together and it's a great family activity that includes minimal preparation and set-up.

There are so many great activities to do with and about trees, whether or not it's Tu B'Shevat time. We did quite a few of the ones I had planned and some we did not yet get to. These will be great to revisit as the seasons change and as we enter the warmer gardening months!
In the meantime, we are gearing up for another one of my very favorite themes to teach and play about: Community Helpers. Join us in the coming weeks for some great dramatic play, sensory, and learning activities all about some of our favorite community helpers--both in the Jewish community and the neighborhood at large!

Until then, Happy Playing!