Inspired by “the alphabet tree” by Leo Lionni and “Small Medium & Large” by Jane Monroe Donovan we embarked on our tree creating adventure.
Christmas Word Trees
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Salt Dough Ornaments
I have been trying to find the perfect opportunity to share a philosophical belief with you, the readers of this blog. I think that today’s post is as good as any. Most of you may remember me mentioning Teach Preschool’s website in previous posts. While looking through some archived posts I came across one entitled “Are your preschooler’s loving the process?” After reading this article it was like I heard bells ring out and white doves fly over head.
When having kids complete a project or a craft it’s the process of making it that allows them to learn. Often times we think of the outcome as being the most important because we put our own adult rules onto the activity. I have come to realize that rules can be stifling on creativity. As you will see J & A’s salt dough ornaments are “Christmas” themed but the colors aren’t exactly “traditional”. I let J & A pick the colors that they wanted to paint “their” ornaments, and I believe that the end results are beautiful. Each one is very unique.
I hope that you take the time to read Deborah’s post and next time you have an idea give your children the tools and let them create, let them learn. Support their learning by removing yourself from the equation. I think you’ll be amazed at what you see. 
Geo Trees!
While keeping with the theme of shapes I wanted to incorporate a Fall theme. I came up with Geo Trees.
Pony Beads, Letter “C”, and Shapes
This week’s theme was shapes.
The first activity was threading pony beads onto a shoe lace. This gave A & J the opportunity to practice their fine motor skills, colors, and patterns. They were first asked to pick 2 colors and put them on the shoelace arranged into a pattern. They did this twice and shared their patterns with each other upon completion. I then allowed them time to simply play with the beads. They thought it was fun to fill the entire shoe lace and compare whose was longer. J couldn’t get the beads on his lace fast enough whereas his sister was putting them on 2 at a time. It was interesting to see their different approaches.
