BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Leaf Sort

Fall leaves have been beautiful here this week! Yesterday we (more me than her, to be truthful) picked up some pretty ones on a walk. I got out a big pan and put one leaf in each compartment. A few times yesterday I showed her how to dump the pan, say "uhhh-ohhh" and then put one leaf back into each compartment. However, a much more fun game happened sporadically. The dog shoved her snout under my hand as I was demonstrating the leaf sort, and I placed a leaf on Alie-Dog's head. HILARIOUS to the 14-month-old. So the game changed to seeing how many leaves we could stack on the doggy's head.
I am definitely about letting children guide learning experiences. Who knows better than them what processes their little minds and bodies are in the middle of working through.....and when they direct a learning experience, I always try to go with it! I may try to stretch what they are doing a Liiiiitle farther (the technical term for this is scaffolding...good ole Vygotsky...) but I honor their input.

For older children you could get a big pile of leaves and practice "dealing" them among the compartments. This is a foundational skill for counting, multiplication and division. Anytime you can give your preschooler/early elementary-age child practice "dealing" various items, go for it!

You could also turn to a science realm and sort the leaves by different characteristics.
-color
-texture
-size
-jagged/smooth edges
-shape

Do an online search for the different vocabulary words associated with leaves--what is the stem called when it goes into the leaf?
Can you identify what species?
Monocot or dicot?

Preschoolers eat this stuff up!!

We also took a walk to Grandbob's house yesterday and practiced "crunching" leaves with our feet. Momma was soooo funny when she kicked up a big cloud of leaves, too! Raking and jumping might just be in today's plans!!
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