This year we've had several opportunities to talk about the importance of trees to our environment, but today I really got to stress the importance of trees as we celebrated Arbor Day with fun games. My younger students re-played the game "Tree Choppers and Tree Planters." Half the class knocked over cones that symbolized trees and the other half set them back up as if they were planting new ones. This is a very active game and children loved running around assuming their role.
Kindergarten students played Arbor Day Twister. They worked with a partner to spell out the name of a tree that was on a card they drew from a hoop. One twister game used upper case letters and the other one used lower case letters. Students had to alternate letters, which made it quite interesting and fun. In between turns, students ran one lap around the gym and then ran to our forest of trees (cones) and touched the top of every tree before returning to the opposite twister mat. This was a great activity and students had fun integrating academics with physical activity.
These students got the BIRCH tree and had to find the lower case letters.
These students had to stretch far to spell out the WALNUT tree.
The CHERRY tree required sharing a letter with a partner.
These students had to spell out the MAPLE tree.
After playing the twister game, students ran a lap around the gym and then ran
through the cones (forest) touching the top of every cone before returning to the game.
As this preschool class jogs around, half of the children are tree choppers and
will knock down cones. The other half are tree planters and will set cones back up.
This tree chopper knocked over a cone, symbolizing the downing of a tree.
This person is a tree planter and sets a cone back up. Yeah!!
