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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Can't have your students make a Christmas tree? How about creating a natural resource tree?


 Fortunately we are allowed to celebrate most holidays in my school.  If we have a student or two that aren't allowed to celebrate a certain holiday due to a religious reason we are sensitive to that..... so far so good!

In fourth grade Social Studies we are studying Texas regions....through this we learn about the native people of the region and the natural resources they used to survive (among many other things).  One of my teammates, Lara, came up with an "At Home" holiday project that we all used.

We asked the students and their families to create a Christmas tree using ONLY natural resources that are found outside.  We discussed the materials that can be used and sent home a page with directions along with an outline of a Christmas tree printed on card-stock (any tree outline can be used) for the students to glue natural resources on.  Boy, were we pleasantly surprised to see the wonderful trees our kiddos turned in.  We displayed all the trees (6 classes of up to 24 students) down our hallway. It was a beautiful display of nature!!!! Believe it or not, no trees were exactly alike.  Don't get me wrong, not everyone followed directions we had some families add plastic ornaments, pom poms, tinsel, etc. but even with those few that created their own rules to the project, our trees looked marvelous!  This is definitely something that will become one of our 4th grade traditions! Hope this inspires you to do something similar whether it is during Christmas time or not. Look at some of the FABULOUS TREES my students created!




HAPPY HOLIDAYS!





2 comments:

  1. Those are so cool and we just finished a unit on renewable and nonrenwable resources. Aww man, I'm bummed I didn't see this until today. I'm putting this wonderful idea in the vault for next year. Thanks so much for sharing! ~Amanda
    The Teaching Thief

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  2. Those are SO cute!! My district is allowed to use "Christmas" (it's crazy that we are considered fortunate if we are allowed to use the term) but I really like this idea! What a great way to involve families too. Consider this post "pinned!" :)

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