Two of our literature units in December centered around Christmas trees (The Perfect Christmas Tree and The Carpenter’s Gift), so we tied in some science by doing a mini unit on conifers!
We started off the unit by reviewing that conifers are a type of evergreen tree that produces cones. We watched this video about evergreens by SciShow Kids (always a go-to for our science lessons!), and then this one that gets more specific about conifers. We learned all about their needles, cones, and seeds!
Conifers are all over our neighborhood, so we took a nature walk and collected some cones and needles to observe closer at home.
Our spruce cone was open, so I turned it upside down and shook it and my son was shocked to see so many seeds come out! We saved some to germinate later on.
We put both of our cones in water for 24 hours and watched them close up like magic! My son was amazed! We talked about why they close up and then took them out to see how long it took them to open again (it took many days for the spruce cone!).
Then we organized our learning by filling out a can/have/are chart with what we learned.
I took all of that information and typed it onto a PowerPoint slide in order, as it was written. I highlighted the can/have/are in different shades of green and my son immediately picked up on how repetitive it was. So we discussed which fact would be best to put first, which facts should be put together because they have similar points, etc.
As he made his choices, I cut and pasted the facts on a new slide. The final step was rereading and revising the paragraph before publishing it on lined paper.
We finished up the mini unit by making air dry clay ornaments decorated with needles from the branches we collected on our nature walk. We just cut out the shapes in the clay using cookie cutters, cut a hole for ribbon using a straw, places the needles where we wanted, let it completely dry, then carefully Modge Podge the whole thing using our fingertips to prevent the needles from moving. I got the idea for these ornaments from Little Pine Learners! I just LOVE that these memories will be on our tree every year from here on! Each ornament on our tree has a story, and I love that we got to add more to it.
Happy Holidays!
If you are looking for more ideas for Christmas, check out my literature unit post about La Befana!
Leave A Reply