Tu B'Shevat Theme: Planting Time!

You cannot very well learn about Tu B'Shevat without getting your hands dirty and sewing some seeds of your own! In Israel, it's customary to donate funds toward planting trees. Where we live, it's not quite outdoor planting season yet, but it's a wonderful time of year to start an indoor kitchen herb garden!

We began our morning with a fun invitation to play about planting with play-dough and this great free printable play-dough mat:

After we finished our morning circle time routine, my son went over to get his schoolbag, which I always keep on a hook at his level. He was quite excited to see it was fuller than usual! Inside were a couple of great related books to read, some seed starting pots and four packets of seeds to plant together: cilantro, basil, thyme, and parsley!

This was a great PJ Library book we received a couple of years ago. Pamela Ehrenberg's playful rhyming story is accompanied by beautiful illustrations by Constanze Kitzing as the reader is carried through the process of planting and caring for parsley seeds for Tu B'Shevat that are ready to be eaten at the Pesach seder!

My son loved the colorful illustrations by Bob Staake as author Diane Muldrow's simple, yet lovely text describes the lengthy process of a tree being planted and nurtured through the seasons and years.

My son was very excited to go outside and try his hands at some planting of his own. We gathered all of our planting materials and some learning activities to take along as well. While we are fortunate to be having some quite mild temperatures right now, we still have many very cold or rainy days that are not ideal for outdoor play. When we do have a nice one thrown in, I try to make sure we get outside even if it means we take our homeschool activities out there with us!

I labeled two starter pots for each of the four types of herbs we would plant with permanent marker in advance. He helped fill each pot with potting soil.

Pinching and poking seeds is a great fine motor activity for little hands! We also took some time to look at the pictures of mature herb plants on the seed packets and guess whether the seeds inside would be big or little. We were surprised to see that even though cilantro and parsley have very little leaves, the seeds were quite big. Basil, although it has a larger leaf, has smaller seeds. Planting is a great science activity from seed to sprout to plant and beyond. There is so much to learn and observe and many questions to be asked and answered along the way.

After sprinkling a few seeds on the top of the soil, he used his pointer fingers to gently poke them beneath the soil and make them a cozy soil blanket!

Next it was time to water our seeds. We used a spray bottle and talked about how it was too cold to leave them outside just yet. We brought in our tray and placed it in a sunny window on our dining room table to care for and observe. I hope we'll get some fresh herbs to enjoy!

I used sidewalk chalk to draw
our new special letter in
uppercase and lowercase form.
He had fun drawing as well!

It was such a nice morning that it would be a shame to just come inside. We had some more learning activities planned, including our letter of the week, so we indulged in some natural Vitamin D while learning about the letter Gg!

 Whether we're in or out, I stick to certain repeated routines when we learn a new letter. I sang our usual song to introduce our letter name and beginning sound. For the purpose of our learning today, I only introduced the "hard Gg" sound as is gorilla or gate.

I "planted" some letter Gg manipulatives (magnets, foam letters and blocks) in one of our side gardens for a letter Gg scavenger hunt.

Can you find all of the letter Gg's Growing in our Garden?

He collected them in our basket, practicing his hard "g" sound all the way. 

We finished our outdoor time together with an activity that both incorporates our letter of the week and a theme we will be exploring more in depth later in the week: taking care of our planet. After a fruitful summer in our garden came to an end and over the past several months of all kinds of weather, our yard had come to house a bit of rubbish that needed to be cleaned up. We recycled a brown paper bag to gather the garbage from our garden and bring it to the dumpster. We made sure to wash our hands very well with soap and water when we got in--you may wish to wear gloves if you're doing this activity in your yard and are concerned about germs! 

We had a great morning outside! Our weather is likely to change again bringing us further opportunities to play and explore inside. We make use of our Nature Observation Station indoors to appreciate some of the beauty and wonder of nature even when we cannot be out there in it. One of my favorite DIY learning materials to make and use with children are seed packet observation bags. I use snack size ziplock bags and a variety of seed packets. This particular set has the herb seeds remaining from our planting activity. I empty a small portion of seeds into the bottom of the bag before placing the packet inside and tightly sealing it. Children can appreciate observing the photographs of mature plants and comparing them to the seeds in the bottom of the bag. Magnifying glasses can help to get a closer look on particularly tiny seeds. We still have a full collection of all of the vegetable, herb and flower seeds we planted last Spring and Summer that are still great for observing and exploring (even if they may not be so great for planting anymore).

Happy planting, digging, watering, nurturing and observing--and, as always, happy playing!

Mad Science Monday: Tu B'Shevat Edition

The theme of Tu B'Shevat could be explored wholly through the lens of science alone! In fact, you could spend well more than two weeks learning about the science of trees, plants, seeds and gardening, transpiration, irrigation, photosynthesis and more. We tend to explore a variety of nature based science themes throughout the year and seasons. For the sake of this until, I chose a few of our favorites to focus on.

Rainbow Celery (pictured at the top)

This is a classic classroom science experiment that beautifully (and colorfully) demonstrates the process of transpiration and how trees, flowers and plants are able to take in water. While I have done it at home and in my classrooms using celery, you can also very well visualize this process with white carnations or white daisies.

You Will Need:

• celery stalks with leaves intact
• food coloring
• jars or glasses corresponding to the number of colors you wish to test (I chose 6 so I could test the primary and secondary colors)
• water

Directions:

1. For best results, I freshly cut the bottom of each test stalk prior to beginning. 
2. Fill each jar with water. Add several drops of food coloring until you reach the desired shade of the color you want. I lean toward darker, more vibrant versions of each color to ensure visible results. If you happen to choose the same colors we did, this is a wonderful review of how to mix primary colors into secondary colors! 
3. Place one celery stalk in each jar. You will need to observe this over a period of at least a few days to really see the full spectrum of results.

This is a great opportunity to practice scientific method with your junior scientist(s). Make a prediction of what you think will happen. What does the celery look like now? What do you think will happen? Will the celery change colors? What color(s) will it become? Are there further questions you'd like to explore? Will some colors "work" faster or be more visible than others? Why? You can explain through continued observation of this experiment how trees (like stalks of celery) "drink" water from the ground through their roots, carry it up their stems and deliver it to the leaves. We see the celery take on the color of the water it is in because we have added dye to it and in this way, we can see how the process of transpiration works! I highly recommend observing this and recording/drawing your results at least a few times over the course of a week. 

Planting together is a great science activity to do with children of all ages. Even very young little hands can (with supervision and support) work with soil, shovels and seeds! This year we are planting a few of our favorite kitchen herbs from seed indoors. Parsley is a common seed to plant during or before Tu B'Shevat as it generally matures enough by Pesach to be used and appreciated on the seder plate! Grass is also a quick and fun option to plant indoors. Children can create their own grass heads to tend to using a pot with a face drawn or glued on from cut paper, stickers or even their own photo and observe over time as grass "hair" grows at the top. Pretend haircuts take on a whole new level of fun and excitement (and fine motor practice) as they cut the grass! Bean and pea seeds are also very quick to sprout and can easily be observed even from a ziplock bag with a damp paper towel or cotton balls inside. Who doesn't love science in a ziplock bag? 

We took on a huge planting project last spring and started our own edible garden from seed. The whole family got involved and it was a great way to get our hands dirty together, spend time outdoors and watch the process of "garden" to "table" in action! The summer temperatures were a little hotter than I had bargained for, but we got a great harvest of peppers, fresh herbs, radishes, carrots, lettuce and oh, the tomatoes!

Garden themed sensory play is a great way to
allow and encourage little hands to dig
in the dirt without disrupting the actual garden!

While we talk a lot on our outdoor walks and visits to botanical gardens about not touching certain plants and flowers, we do encourage exploring them at home. This dissection of a flower activity was a great way to get one last hurrah with a lovely bouquet of flowers I received as a gift from a student and her family at the end of the school year last spring. To set up your own plant/flower dissection, simply provide a collection of cut flowers or clippings from outdoor plants and trees along with some child-safe scissors, tweezers, and magnifying glasses. You can prepare a secondary activity as well using the clippings in a nature collage on the sticky side of clear contact paper, making "magic potions" in water or pressing flowers and leaves for use in paper crafts and greeting cards. It's a great way to teach children about the importance of using natural resources to their utmost potential and nature conservation.

Our final favorite Tu B'Shevat themed science activity is one that I highly recommend for your more particular eaters!

Do You Eat the Parts of Plants?

Ask almost any child if they ever eat leaves or seeds or roots or flowers and they will most likely laugh in your face with an adamant "No!" This science activity puts the proof in the pudding, so to speak.

You will need:

• 5 paper plates, pre-labeled with the words/pictures "roots," "seeds," "leaves," "stems," and "flowers"
• A selection of produce, nuts and seeds to demonstrate each category

Want to do more? Take a field trip to the grocery store together and go on a parts of a plant scavenger hunt. Can you find all of a plant's parts on the produce aisle? Here's a bigger challenge: can you find the parts of a plant on other aisles as well? The spice aisle? The snack aisle? The cereal aisle? What parts of the plant does peanut butter come from? How about honey?

For stems, I typically use celery. Rhubarb is another example, though it must be cooked to be eaten. Broccoli and cauliflower are great examples of flowers. There are other flowers that are also edible--like nasturtiums, chive flowers and even violets.

Lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage and all sorts of leafy greens are great examples of leaves we commonly eat. Herbs like mint, sage, basil and rosemary are also great examples commonly used in cooking. When it comes to seeds, we all enjoy the salty crunch of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and many of our favorite nuts. It is also wonderful to show children inside of pea pods and beans that some of the most common ingredients on our dinner plates are, in fact, seeds!

Did your kids know that the carrot sticks they love munching on came from underground? How about the potatoes that make their favorite chips or french fries? Yup, we eat roots, too! It's also great to show them turnips, beets, sweet potatoes, parsnips and jicama. Roots come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and while we don't always see them underground, we do see them at the grocery store and in the kitchen.

Happy and Healthy Snacking, Experimenting and Playing!

Tu B'Shevat Theme: Early Literacy, Water-play Fun & a Field Trip!

We have been keeping busy around here with our tree-themed Tu B'Shevat fun. My son, although definitely in the category of pre-readers, is quite excited by having little booklets of his very own. Whether it's one he can color and help to create or one that he can read with me, I find great value in the plethora of free printable early literacy resources available online. This time of year, many trees in our area are bare and in their winter state. My son really pointed this out when during a discussion earlier this week about parts of a tree, I asked "do trees have leaves?" He replied, "No!" I was stumped (pun intended) at first--but then I realized that many of the trees do NOT have leaves right now! We made such a big deal about the leaves falling off during our Autumn learning that it is no surprise he would say that trees do not have leaves. Pine trees and other evergreens are great trees for observing year round in nature. My son loves to collect pine cones and fallen branches with bunches of pine needles still attached. I printed out this great emergent reader and sequencing set about The Life Cycle of a Pine Tree via teacherspayteachers.com. We had a lovely collection of natural props at home to accompany the lesson. He loved pointing to and naming objects in the photographs as we read. He enjoyed working through the four sequence cards together with me and somehow had the idea to involve a few of his favorite toy cars and trucks in the activity! 

You can also use the sequencing cards for a game of "What's Missing?" Simply place the four cards in order and give your child(ren) an opportunity to observe and commit them to memory. As the child closes his/her eyes, remove one card. They can then open their eyes and try to answer the question "What's Missing?" To make the game more advanced, you can hide 2 cards or jumble up the order.
Alternatively, you can play a Tu B'Shevat themed version of "What's Missing?" with actual objects from nature! This is a great activity to do at home or at the park together.

We have been getting a great deal of use and benefit from our collection of natural items and parts of a tree. In addition to using them for observation and even building, we had a lot of fun using some of our sticks, twigs, bark and pine cones for sensory play this week. I simply filled a shallow plastic bin with a small amount of water, added the aforementioned natural materials and a couple of cups for scooping and pouring. My son asked to add some additional kitchen set materials from his dramatic play area and involved himself for quite a while mixing up "tree food" and "tree smoothies." He loved this simple waterplay activity so much, he requested to do it again and I was glad to oblige (especially since, when set up in the kitchen, it meant I could simultaneously get dishes washed and dinner on the stove).

He loved using the sticks to mix up his magical potions and recipes!

I try to include at least one or two out-of-the-house activities into our week. We belong to a great mommy-and-me playgroup and have fabulous library story times. In addition, we are fortunate to have memberships at a few amazing local museums and attractions. Field trips often involve visiting one of these destinations and one should never underestimate the educational value (and potential enjoyment) of even accompanying a parent on errands. Some of our favorite ever field trips have not been to famous attractions or destinations that have admissions costs. In fact, some of my son's favorite places to visit are the pet store, the park, the playground and, um, Walmart (don't ask!). On Friday, I made plans to take him to a nearby nursery and garden center. While the nursery seems like an unlikely destination on a dreary and cold February morning, for us it was a huge hit! And what better way to wipe away a case of the winter doldrums than to be surrounded by the pleasant smell of fresh cut flowers and the eager squeals of a delighted toddler in his version of Paradise? Yes, our local nursery had everything a boy could ask for--chickens, rocks, dirt, greenery and tractors!

The chickens were all in hiding, but look, we found an egg outside the coup!

"Mommy, a big digger!"

We left two very satisfied customers--my son, with his very own little houseplant to take care of and nurture, and me with a lovely bouquet of fresh cut flowers for our Shabbat table. And our whole family has big plans to return closer to Spring as we get ready to begin our own family garden again. We will be working on some indoor planting for the meantime in the week to come. My son is most eager to come back when all the worms are out!

Happy Playing!

A Peek In Our Playroom: Shabbat Edition

I'm veering off topic a bit for today's post, but be sure to check in again next week for more of our tree-themed adventures for Tu B'Shevat, including some early literacy activities, sensory play and a fun field trip! But for today, I wanted to touch on a topic near and dear to my heart every Friday morning--getting ready for Shabbat!

One of my son's favorite weekly activities before Shabbat
is decorating his own plastic kiddush cup to use at the table.

I have written before on the theme of Shabbat, including learning activities that can be done during the week, projects to encourage your little ones' hands in creating a lovely atmosphere and even some tips on making the day itself extra special. I think that as a parent in a shomer Shabbos home, one of my greatest concerns is that my child grow up to see Shabbat as a special and pleasant time and not, G-d forbid, the opposite! With a 25 hour time-span of extensive prohibited acts that even adults can find challenging at times, this can feel tricky. While we do go on walks, visits and even occasionally now make the 1.5 mile trek all the way to shul, much of our Shabbat is spent in the house. There are definite benefits to time at home. We get quality family time together. My son has longer stretches of uninterrupted, self-led play with his toys. It is peaceful and restful and rejuvenating for us all. We do a lot to make the atmosphere extra special--from how we decorate to what we eat to how we dress. That said, as my son grows older and more independent (i.e. more autonomous in navigating his space and accessing things he wants or needs), the challenge of setting up that space to adhere to the laws of Shabbat gets a bit more tricky. Common weekday activities like drawing, writing, arts & crafts, battery-operated/electronic toys, playdough, cooking and more are prohibited on Shabbat. There are a few approaches one can take with a play area regarding this issue. One is to never have those activities accessible at child-level. With our recent playroom updates (including a STEAM cart and fully accessible art center), this is not the option I choose. Another is to have these activities always accessible and either spend the day saying "no" and redirecting or turn a blind eye--after all, they are still just little kids, right? Children are not commanded to begin keeping the mitzvot of Shabbat until they turn 3 and even then, they are not required to be fully observant of them until after bar/bas mitzvah age. As a parent, however, I struggle with the idea of saying (even by not saying anything) that something is OK until all of a sudden one day it is no longer OK. Today you could use your toy computer on Shabbat, but next week you can't! Last week you were allowed to turn the lights on and off but not this week! I feel that not only is this something that could confuse our son, but also something that could create a negative association with growing up as an Orthodox Jew. So much in the same way that I set up our play area the rest of the week to be accessible to what we are learning and exploring as a family, I make a few modifications before Shabbat each week to support the same construct within the framework of Shabbat.

Dramatic play about getting ready for Shabbat and actually being invited to help with the process each week also sets a stage where my son feels involved in creating our Shabbat environment and ownership in the experience.

There is a huge benefit here to keeping a play area minimally stocked and swapping/rotating toys and materials. The idea of things being swapped out and rotated in is already a familiar one, so a weekly change for Shabbat does not feel threatening to my son (like things are being taken away). Additionally, since not everything is out or available all of the time, everything has a novel appeal! Our art center is now big enough that it requires a full tablecloth to drape over the top and not just a large scarf to drape over one shelf. Honestly, there are times my son peeks behind the curtain! We redirect him in those times and engage him in another activity. In addition, we've started something new with our STEAM cart to include Shabbat specific materials, toys or activities in a couple of the drawers each week. Sometimes I use toys/activities from our previous Shabbat theme. Sometimes I stock a drawer with favorite Shabbat books we can read together. There are some great toys and puzzles on the market for Shabbat play and beautiful toy Shabbat sets. If investing in a set like this is something meaningful to your family, you can definitely do so. You can also make your own play sets and involve the kids in that as well. My son particularly likes when I stock a drawer with our homemade Shabbat felt board set. Right now, I choose the toys or activities that go into the drawers and my son has the novelty of being surprised. You could also include children in choosing a toy, puzzle or game from their collections to put out each week for Shabbat.

Labels with a picture of a Shabbat table indicate to my pre-reader that what is inside is special for Shabbat!

Some favorite Shabbat books that he *would* read every day, but we save just for Shabbat itself. He especially likes to use the Shabbat story river rocks alongside our books or in creating his own Shabbat story.

He loves helping to set our Shabbat table and using his dramatic play toys to set his own little table. He also has a lot of fun with this DIY activity I created from a free printable available here.

For right now, my son loves Shabbat. He is excited for it each week and relishes most of the day. There are moments where he wants to make a smoothie or have toast or go to Chuck E. Cheese during the day and has to hear "no." We try to supplement statements of "we can't do that on Shabbat" with "but on Shabbat we can..." It is our hope that through our own modeling and through some creative efforts, we will be able to preserve his joy and enthusiasm for years to come. Shabbat Shalom and Happy Playing!

Think Outside the Box Thursday: When To Cling to Your Roots and When To Go Out on a Limb

And Other Life Lessons Learned from Trees

This lovely piece of group artwork was
created by a former preschool class of mine. It
is a lovely reminder that each individual plays a
beautiful and vital role in making a classroom
(or family) thrive and grow!

 Whether you are a parent or a teacher (or both), we all know the feeling: the feeling of having created the perfect lesson plan only to have it totally bomb! As a classroom teacher, while mildly unsettling, I never found it particularly challenging to restructure an activity in the moment or just toss it aside altogether and move forward. As a homeschooling parent, that is sometimes more challenging for me. Lesson plans are like brain children to me. They are a part of me into which I pour my blood, sweat, and tears. And perhaps the only thing I am more attached to than my brain children is my actual child! So when interactions between the two go less than smoothly, it is a feeling I can only imagine might be akin to the frustrations of sibling rivalry. And so, when things in our homeschool environment do not go as planned, I must play both the role of teacher and mother and decide when I should stand firm and dig my proverbial roots into the ground and when I need to bend with the winds and go out on a limb.

Yesterday our morning began with a Table Time activity. My son loved reading through this interactive booklet together (you can find and print your own copy here) as we identified objects in his collection from our Nature Scavenger Hunt the day before. He loved seeing how bark rubbings work and trying it out himself. We added a variety of stickers to the pages and doodles and dictations.

We went through our typical morning routines with all of his usual enthusiasm. He requested to sing our Parts of a Tree song and we had a lot of fun playing our roll-the-die gross motor tree game again. He was eager, as usual, to bring his school bag over and see what was inside. But when he pulled out a copy of Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, he opted to put it away on his bookshelf instead of reading it together and doing the activity I had to go along with it. I tried to encourage and invite him back, but I felt that if I pushed too hard, it would be met with resistance and create an unnecessary battle in that moment. I tried to assess what my son's needs were in that moment and I felt he needed a break for some open play time. He had some fun playing in his kitchen area and while he did so, I also had a break to regroup and rethink. Perhaps he would engage in the story and activity if I approached it in a different manner. So rather than inviting him back to sit on my lap and hear me read the book, I invited him back to come watch it being read by someone else on YouTube. He loved it! 

 He spent some time engaged in vertical work at his tree mural hanging on our pantry door. While he was there, he noticed the Bird World sensory bin on his shelf. Its lid was still on but he peeked through the clear bottom of the bin and said, "Not scary!"
 If you spend a good chunk of time with my little guy, you will likely hear him say those two words about a lot of things--namely, the doctor, the vacuum cleaner, the food processor, the electric steam mop, getting his nails clipped, firefighters with their gas masks on, dogs and any number of other novel experiences in his world. "Not scary," in fact, is his way of communicating that he is afraid and in need of reassurance. We work with him on his anxieties and I am mindful not to say "no, it's not scary" when to him, these things really are! Instead, I use language like, "the doctor is someone who helps us stay healthy. He is safe." Or "the vacuum is loud, but it helps us clean the floor and it is safe." I focus on conveying to him that he is safe and we are there to support him. I do not want to invalidate his fears and anxieties but I also do not want him to be plagued and paralyzed by them.
So I took down the bin, opened it up and showed him what was inside. He was TERRIFIED of the birds. My internal reaction wavered between frustration and amusement. He was with me when we bought these bird figurines in the floral department of the Dollar Tree. I was feeling rather attached to what I thought was a fabulous small world setup--one he could really explore and abstractly expand upon. I explained that the birds were not real. They looked very realistic, but they were made of Styrofoam and plastic and even craft feathers like the ones we had used. I showed him that the pine cones were real and the wooden tree disks were real parts of a tree branch. The bird seed was even real and could actually be eaten by birds outside, but these birds were not real. They were not alive and never had been and never could be. We could only pretend with them and play with them and they were safe; Mommy and Tatty would not bring something into the house that was not safe. He wanted me to take the bin away, but I also sensed that in this scenario he needed support to overcome his obstacle rather than to avoid it altogether. I agreed to take it away if he would like, but first I wanted him to touch one bird with one finger. He was nervous and resisted at first, but then, with my hand holding his, he touched one bird with one finger, and then another, and then began playing--and then had a wonderful time. It definitely felt good to see him enjoy an activity I had put time and thought into--but for me, the big win was seeing his confidence after he overcame a fear.

We finished our morning with some play activities from the STEAM cart. He loved making shapes with the wooden tree disks. I modeled stacking them to make cylinders, how to create a smiley face and even set out his recycling bin as well to see what he might come up with combining the two in an impromptu building activity.

As parents and/or educators, we are faced again and again with plans that don't go as, well, planned. You made an amazing dinner guaranteed to satisfy everyone at your dining room table only to be faced with cranky and dissatisfied customers. You planned a fun family outing only to arrive and your kid wants to go home after five minutes. You created the perfect craft or project or activity--one sure to please the crowd--and instead, you lose them altogether. What do you do? When do you push forward? When do you pull back? And when do you just let go?

Building with wooden tree disks and recycled materials.

 I believe there are times we do one or the other and times we do all three. But before deciding how to approach it, there are a few key steps I like to take:

• Assess the reason for resistance: What could be contributing to a child avoiding or resisting an activity? Is he bored? Is she hungry? Is it too difficult or too easy? Is he afraid or anxious about something? Is she feeling ill? Did you give an adequate explanation of the activity and what to do? Did you use too much language or not enough? Does the child need more support and involvement or more space and autonomy?
• Assess the child's need in the moment: Does he need a break to play? Does he need a snack? Does she need more attention or support? Does she need an opportunity to get moving or get outside? Does he need a change of scenery? 
• Assess your own role and reactions: Do you need a break? Do you need to eat? (Sometimes these two sneak up on me!) Do you need to accomplish this right now or can you come back to it later? What is the goal and intention of the activity? What would success look like? 
• Decide on an approach: Now it's time to decide on an approach. Note that you may need to try more than one--this is kind of the troubleshooting stage. Perhaps you explain the activity again. Perhaps you opt to take a break and return again later. Sometimes a tweak in your tone or expression can make a difference. Sometimes naming your frustration can be a huge asset in being able to let go of it yourself while simultaneously modeling this skill for young ones. On the other hand, there are occasions when it is beneficial to push through and firmly encourage participation. You must weigh the risks and benefits. What would the child(ren) get out of completing the task at hand and what would be the detriment of not doing so? On the other hand, would the expense of pushing forward outweigh the reward? There are times that you will be able to tweak and adjust and adapt toward success and other times you may have to abandon ship altogether.
• Evaluate the scenario: When all is said and done, I think it is important to evaluate the scenario again. What might have contributed to the challenge? Was it something avoidable (like waiting too long to eat or take a break--and this goes for both the kids and the grownups!)? Or was it something that was unpredictable (like a newfound phobia of toy birds)? This is not an invitation to be hard on yourself, but rather an opportunity to see your successes. What did you do well? You had great intentions. You put in astounding levels of creativity, productivity, and flexibility. Pat yourself on the back. Stand tall and proud like a tree, be content with your natural beauty and enjoy the view!

He decided this was a blender and he was mixing a smoothie!

Happy Playing!

Tu B'Shevat Theme: A Walk in the Park

Looking to see if anyone lives inside that hollowed out tree root!

Everyone needs a day to just walk in the park, and for us, yesterday was that day! We had amazing weather (sandwiched between several days of less than amazing weather). Having just learned about the parts of a tree, we grabbed a basket, a backpack, some snacks and headed to a nearby park. We decided while we were there, we would go on a Nature Scavenger Hunt to collect as many parts of a tree as we could find on the ground. My son was so excited to carrying his own basket to collect his treasures. Some parks are protected and therefore have regulations about anything being removed. If that is the case, drawing pictures of your findings, taking photos, writing/dictating about them or even bringing along a journal or printout of a scavenger hunt list can be a great alternative method of preserving your collections. In fact, this webpage offers over 30 free printable scavenger hunts to use in nature or on outings with your kids! You may even be fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood (or with a yard) that has accessible trees or wooded areas.  I do think taking a nature scavenger hunt is a great opportunity to talk about what types of things are OK to take from their natural environment, what types of things might be unsafe and what we must leave in nature because it is still growing! If you feel your child's collection is getting a little too large, it can also be a great opportunity to teach about taking only what we can use and preserving the rest for others to benefit. You can talk about the animals and bugs that benefit from natural items on the ground and how they help the soil that, in turn, helps the trees to grow. Another method we like for nature collections is using masking tape around the wrist, sticky side out as a bracelet. Little hands can collect leaves (as in the photo above), flowers or other small, flat and lightweight items to stick on to their bracelets. You can even laminate or cover them with contact paper once you return home to create a lovely bookmark. 

We had a great time walking, observing and collecting. My son was totally amazed at seeing a tree so large and old that its roots had burst through the ground's surface. He got up close and personal with one hollowed out root and I wondered with him if any animals might be living inside. He confirmed that nobody was home! 

He had fun searching for leaves, pine needles, twigs and sticks, bits of bark, acorns, horse chestnuts, and pine cones. We made sure to take a break for playing on the playground, too--that's pretty important business, after all! He was good and tuckered out by the time we returned home for supper and had just enough energy to take out his Chicka Chicka Boom Boom magnetic coconut tree and work with his letter magnets. We had fun making up our own version of the rhythmic story using the letter names of magnets he chose. I also showed him how to create his name and if he happened to end up with a word on the tree, I showed him that as well!

We have big plans for what we brought home in our basket today. Our Table Time activity this morning is already set out and waiting. I printed this wonderful booklet to draw/write about and collect parts of trees for free from a fellow teacher via the teacherspayteachers.com website. We had actually packed it along on our park trip with a travel pouch of colored pencils but never made it around to using it while we were there. It would be a wonderful material to accompany a nature walk or park visit, however. 

I'm looking forward to seeing some of these natural materials turned into lovely works of art as our unit continues. They are great for observation and exploration in and of themselves and there is a great deal of sensory play that can also happen with treasures found in nature. In the past, I have even used such things to create DIY learning activities, like this one (geared toward 4-5 year old children). I may create a simpler version for my toddler to work on one-to-one correspondence. 

 To create your own version of this Tu B'Shevat themed addition activity, you will need:

• a collection of twigs, about the same length (not too much taller than a toilet paper tube)
• a collection of recycled toilet paper tubes
• a black marker
• number cards (here, I used Montessori sand numbers, but you can print off, write or use any type of flash card as well)

I cut one toilet paper tube in half and wrote a + sign and an = sign. On the remaining tubes, I wrote numerals 1 through 5. You can decide how many tubes you'd like to prepare and prepare accordingly. I also added dots to visually represent each number. To play the game, the child places the corresponding number of twigs in each tube and adds them together to arrive at the sum. He/she then places to appropriate number card in the sum space.

Whether you're enjoying a walk in the park or the weather has you huddled up indoors, I wish you all happy playing and many opportunities to explore the natural world!