Week 15 Day 5

Book choices for today:

Evergreen Trees   John F. Prevost
Where Would I Be in an Evergreen Tree   Jennifer Blomgren
Evergreens are Green   Susan Canizares
Deciduous and Evergreen Trees   Margaret MacDonald

Botany: (first circle)

Need for lesson – The Evergreen Tree or other evergreen work choice, and some pinecone samples.

Botany 17

Boys and girls, we have talked about why some leaves change their color in the Fall. The kind of trees with leaves that change color are called deciduous trees. Deciduous trees lose their leaves in the Fall and grow new ones in the Spring. Maple, oak, and birch are the names of some deciduous trees. What do we call those trees that stay green even during the winter? We call them evergreen trees. An evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs. There is a group of evergreen trees that are called conifers. Conifers are trees that grow cones. The cones of the conifer trees are important because they are the place where the tree makes and protects its seeds. This is a pine cone (show cone sample). Cones are made up of many scales. Scales are a kind of shelter, or protection for the seeds. When it is time, the scales of the cone open and the seeds fall to the ground. These seeds can now grow into more evergreen trees! Pinecones do something very interesting. Sometimes if you find a pinecone, it may be opened or sometimes it is closed. Why do you think that is? Let’s try an experiment. We will get these pinecones wet and see what they do. We will put them on our Botany shelf and just observe over the next few days. (If already closed, just lay them on the trya to dry out)

(In a day or two, the pinecones that were wet, will slowly dry out and open up. Once the children notice the change discuss what happened and why. In dry air, the pinecones will open. When it is humid, moist, or wet, the pinecones will close.)

Additional Works:

Evergreen/Deciduous – This is just a simple sorting work of leaves/needles.

Needle Cutting – Provide a basket with stems of pine needles. Children can cut the needles off and use them later to make smelling bags or other ideas. Your room will smell amazing!

Art:

Hand Print Evergreen – Paint the children’s hand green and they can then make prints of their hand inside of a pre-drawn triangle shape on a piece of construction paper. Have the triangle shape facing upside down to make the hand prints, so that when it is turned upright it looks like an evergreen tree. The children can also glue pre-cut pine cone shape pieces of brown paper to their evergreen tree.

Trees – Children can paint an evergreen tree and a deciduous one.

Science: (second circle)

Need for lesson – Wax paper, small shallow containers, eye-droppers, containers of different colored water, and paper towels.

Let the children feel the paper towels as well as the wax paper. “What do you think will happen if we drop some of the water on the paper towel?” Using the eye-dropper, drop some colored water on paper towel. The paper towel soaked up, or absorbed the water. “What do you think will happen if we drop water onto the wax paper?” Add drops of water onto the wax paper. The wax paper pushes away, or repels the water drops. Wax paper and water react to each other in a different way than do the water and paper towel. Children can explore with pieces of paper towel and wax paper to see water drops repel and absorb.