Leaves

Preparation: Gather a wide variety of leaves at least a few days before the lesson. Scrounge through the change in the house (or raid your daughter's piggy bank) to make money bags. Each bag has 10 pennies, two nickles and one dime.

Number - Money: Last week we counted to 10. What comes next? No. Not 11. Money!

If you want to see pure excitement on a young child's face, tell them you will learn about money.

See the sorting? 1 dime, 2 nickles, 10 pennies

and matching rows

proud. Just counted that he had 13 coins, and we discussed the value of his pile.

counting

I used to give nine pennies when we did the number nine. This year I had the idea of waiting until we covered 10, then talking about coin values and names. It worked! We named a dime first. It is the smallest coin. It is silver. It's value is 10, just like our 10 rod. We decided that we could not buy a 10 cent piece of candy with our 10 rod. We needed real money. Next we named a penny. It is also small. It is copper. It is worth 1 cent. How many little one blocks could we line up next to the 10 rod? 10! How many pennies have the same value as a dime? 10! Would you rather carry 10 pennies or 1 dime in your pocket? The answer went both ways. Now, how many five rods can we stack next to the 10? 2. Lastly, we named the nickle with the value of 5 cents. There are two fives in 10, so two nickles have the same value as a dime.

We had this simple, fun discussion before everyone got their money bags. Once I handed out the bags, the exploration was handed over to them - counting, sorting, piles, where they'd keep their money, even how to clean the pennies in Diet Coke!

Letter - L: lion, lamp, lemon, lamb, leaf, ladybug, lollipop, log

sign - love and leaf

getting ready for letter time

Circle Time - Leaves: Everyone chose an action in our gathering song today. There was jumping, clapping, stomping, spinning, crawling, spinning, more crawling, then spinning with crawling. Watching their gleeful movements makes me just laugh with joy.

We read Leaves by Ruth Thomson and Chipmunk at Hollow Tree Lane by Victoria Sherrow. I really like Leaves. It made exploration easy. "Leaves come in all shapes and sizes. Some are wide and flat. Others are narrow and pointed." I pulled wide leaves and narrow leaves from my collection. It said the undersides are sometimes hairy. It said to "Feel the bumpy tubes, called veins." We did this with the mint plant I brought, along with "Feel a dead leaf and a leaf growing on a plant." It said go for a leaf walk. We did. It described leaf rubbings and one type of leaf collage. We did both of those. We collected evergreen leaves and felt them, just like the book said. It asked if you'd eaten leaves. We did. It asked you to smell leaves. We did. This book full of information made a full lesson for me.

The leaves I brought for them to smell were onion, (some children ate these too) mint, rosemary and basil. (All the leaves were picked fresh from my garden. ) We charted what our favorite smells were. Onion got three votes. Mint got two. No one like rosemary. Three said basil was their favorite.

We ate leaves with our snack. Whoever wanted some was welcome to a leaf of organic lettuce. There was red and green romaine, lollo rosa, oak leaf and tango to choose from. Everyone who took one ate it, after watching me eat some. Organic, gluten free, pareve lollipops were also served with snack. No example was necessary this time.

Music and Movement: We went outside. We did not stay long. It was chilly out there. I was grateful the sunshine had dried some leaves for us to crunch through and collect for our projects. We also found some evergreen leaves and observed them.

We have lollipops and leaves!

Craft: leaf rubbings and collages

I had to help some of the children apply enough pressure to get a clear rubbing. We used my block crayons. They all worked diligently on these. Someone asked what a collage was. (I love their inquisitiveness!) I explained that it was a gathering of different things to create something new. Create they did! They experimented with different glue and different leaves in the collages. I haven't tried all of their methods, so I hope they turn out/dry well.

Play Time: Lincoln Logs. I brought my big bucket of logs. One of the children brought her house to share with everyone. They also built with a play set that is in the classroom.

Enjoy some leaves and maybe a lollipop this week!