Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/branching-out-exploring-math-concepts-with-trees/5026657/
*Photos can be found in the pdf version of this article.
Trees give us oxygen, shade, and endless opportunities?for… math?!
At the beginning of the school year, our children chose a tree from the schoolyard to be our adopted tree. Together we named our tree Stevie, and spent time getting to know it. We encouraged children to look at and touch different parts of the tree, to smell the leaves and listen to them rustle in the wind and in their hands, and to share anything they wished to know about the new addition to our class. We incorporated our adopted tree into many parts of our class routine. We read stories while sitting beneath our tree, and we played games—ring-around-the-rosie; duck, duck, goose, and others—with Stevie at the center. Stevie became a beloved part of our classroom. Children would regularly ask questions and initiate conversations about our tree.
“Do you think Stevie is cold?”
“It is hot today. We should give Stevie some more water.”
Adopting a class tree provided a wealth of opportunities for exploring science—our children learned about the structure of trees, the seasonal changes of trees, and more—but we also found that our tree gave us wonderful, and somewhat unexpected opportunities, ...