Evergreen Trees & Cardinals

On Friday, we learned all about evergreen trees and our state bird, the cardinal.  Have you seen any flying about or perched on a pine tree?  I haven't yet, but I'm always on the lookout!

 

We looked at pictures from:

 

and read:

 

In art, we made a snow-covered evergreen tree by dabbing white paint with a cotton ball.  Then we glued on two cardinals - a red one (male) and a brown one (female).  We talked a lot about which color the boys and girls are.  Some kiddos were so cute, and called the red ones the daddy birds and the brown ones the mommy birds.  Adorable!  These will be clipped in the hallway for you to see.

 

Our fine motor activity was the colorful snowflake drop.  We used a little tiny ladle (it is seriously the cutest thing ever!) to scoop up sparkly poms and place them on the holes of a small tray.  There were 12 in all, and the kids did a great job - especially since they weren't supposed to use their free hand for assistance!

 

In math, the kids played our tree number match game.  Numbers 1-10 are traced on an evergreen cutout, and the kids used plastic numbers to match them.  Then the hard part - pointing and counting them in order!  They did a super job.  :)

 

After snack, we played in the block room for a bit.  The children love the gingerbread tub so much that we decided to leave it for January.  (We played with it all through December as well.)  It's simply flour, salt, nutmeg and allspice.  Come in and take a whiff - it smells sooooo good!  Our tub also includes:

- gingerbread friends

- pine cones

- plastic trucks

- scoops/spoons

- empty spice shakers

- cups



 

We also completed our letter Nn literacy activity, which I will cover in the next post.  It was a fun, busy, productive day!