Help me give my students hands-on learning stations that will allow them to study leaves and trees. We'll use tree blocks to build our own botanic gardens and stencils to create leaf "portraits".
I have 26 curious, hard-working, and caring kindergarten students. These students come from diverse racial, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. They're learning so many new skills -- and each at their own pace. Some students come to kindergarten already reading and writing; others are learning to rhyme and name their letters. The challenge of meeting each student where they are is what I love about kindergarten!
We are part of a school that prioritizes building early literacy skills alongside in-depth, project-based learning.
Throughout kindergarten, we reconstruct the places we visit with blocks, we act out stories and come up with our own playful endings, and we create beautiful art work related to our units of study. We also carefully assess students' literacy knowledge and plan interactive lessons to meet their specific learning needs. Watching this group of students learn to read and use these skills as they explore the world around them is the highlight of my work as a teacher!
My Project
This spring, we will be studying trees. St. Louis is an amazing place to do this! We have wonderful parks, an amazing botanic garden, and trees within walking distance of our school. We need materials to help us build off of these learning experiences. We'll use our leaf stencils and rubbing tiles to create a "leaf guide" based on leaves we find on our walks. The wooden tree blocks will inspire students to recreate the botanic gardens in our own block area.
We have an hour each day dedicated to "lab" time; this is a period for students to explore, collaborate, and use their creativity as they investigate our current unit of study.
All of these materials will enrich our lab time! In addition to the above activities, students will also grow their own plants and begin to think like scientists as they observe their life cycles. We will visit a neighborhood tree each week to observe how it changes from early spring to summer. We'll recreate this tree in felt on our classroom wall.
While these lab stations will be fun for students, perhaps what is most important about this study is that it helps our students become stewards of the environment -- perhaps one of our most important jobs as teachers!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Valentine and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.