Ecology in our Classroom!

Gearing up for "Tu B'shvat" (literally: 15th Shvat) Jewish New Year for Trees, we chose to spend a week, offering the children insight and appreciation as to how important trees are, and bring to light what trees contribute into their lives. 

 

How did this play out in our classroom?

 

During Circle time we had a discussion about what comes from Trees! I opened the discussion telling the children that we'll be celebrating a birthday next week! After realizing its not any of the children in our classroom's birthday...we told them,

It was THE TREES!

I asked the children if they could tell me some thing that comes from a tree?

The initial responses were, "Apples, oranges...fruits come from Trees"

After some more prompts...the older children said leaves, wood...

well that means FURNITURE!

We did a fun activity! Each child received a few little cut-outs of trees, and had to go around the classroom, and tape it to something that COMES FROM A TREE!

What an eye-opening activity this was, for the children to question and discover what comes from trees! 

Can you imagine what life would be like WITHOUT TREES??

Table is made from wood!

More wooden furniture...

More wooden furniture!

More wooden furniture!

Hey, these paper towel rolls come from Trees!

We even discovered that PAPER comes from trees!

BL Found the wooden Rods from the Classroom Torah! That comes from Trees!

It was a fun activity...and definitely got the children thinking....

One of the ways in which we celebrate "Tu B'shvat" is by being more mindful of the environment, and finding ways in which we can better care for it!

In that spirit, we created a new center in our classroom: 

Recycling Center. 

 

We set up a table with some tools, supplies and inspirational pictures posted around the edge of it!

Next to it was a large box of all sorts of recycled containers, boxes, tubes and more! (Thank you to all the parents who brought in!)

The intention was, in addition to fostering the children's creativity & build motor skills, help the children realize how much they can do with items that are seemingly trash, or not needed! We also discovered that all these items come from Trees...so it helped us appreciate trees, and gain ideas on how to RE-INVENT, RE-USE & RE-CYCLE!

 

 We began by learning the rules of our new center! We can use it when the sign says "Open." If it has a "Closed" sign, then we cannot use the center! I explained the new tools and how they can be used....

"A Sukkah! These sticks can be the S'chach!"

"chopsticks are the arms"

 BL connected bottle-tops to chopsticks, "these are the arms" She counted as many bottle tops as she would need "fingers."

BL wrapped lots of elastics around this box...to create a guitar! It actually played music!

"I made a tunnel! I wrote tunnel inside!" (her writing is inside the box)

"The top is to help the airplane fly" "This green thing is for the people standing waiting to get on the air-plane!"