Our Forest - What is forest? Lets find out!

THEME: What is forest? Lets find out! (project)

CHILDREN AGE: 3-4 years

OBJECTIVES: The child knows what is forest. The child can mention some plants/trees/flowers and animals/birds/bugs that are in forest. Activity 1: The child learns about a drawing program in tablet and tries to use it. The child is brave and introduces his/hers drawing to others. Activity 2: The child is active and brave in the forest. The child puts gathered nature materials in the art work. The child looks at art work. The child is active to give opinion about the most exiting treasure that is worth exploring further. Activity 3: The child knows pine cone (where it grows, why some cones are open and some closed). The child finds pine cones from the forest and compares them (size, color,  openness). The child participates actively doing the experiments. The child makes flowers from the pine cones and makes Mother's Day cards from them.

TOOLS/MATERIALS: Activity 1: tablet, paper, pen, printer, clothespin to put pictures up. Activity 2: every child has own treasure collecting bowl, name sign, bag, vests, table, chairs, Y-shape branches, yarn. Activity 3: drawing or showing, pine cones, for the experiment: bowl with water, jar with hot water, empty jar, for arts: pine cones flowers, colors, brushes, hot glue, paper for the cards.

PREPARATIONS: Activity 1: charge tablet, download app "Paint for kids". Activity 2. find bowls for the treasures, make name signs, gather Y-shape branches from the forest, twine yarn on it different colors. Activity 3: find or draw pictures with pine tree, cones, seeds, branches. Print it out. Out ready on table bowl with water and empty jars. Cut pine flowers with tongs.

ACTIVITY:

Activity 1: Individual activity. so that the children don't copy each other they will go to teacher to draw with the tablet program one by one. Firstly the teachers explains the program opportunities: how to draw with finger and how to choose colors. Then teacher asks to draw a picture on theme "What is forest?". If necessary ask questions like what grows there? who lives there? and then the children is drawing. The teachers ask questions about the pictures, so she will be able to help the child during the presentation if necessary. When the drawing is ready the teachers saves it to the tablet. When all the children have made the drawings, the teacher prints them out. The drawings are put on the wall. The child goes to his/hers drawing and introduces it to the others. If necessary teacher helps. Afterward there is a discussion what is forest, what grows there and who lives there.

Activity 2: Hike to the forest. Teacher gives the treasure bowls for everybody. Each child has to collect what he/she thinks is exiting (plants, rocks, branches, cones, bark and so on). When they are ready then they have some free time to explore the forest. Back in kindergarten the activity continues with small groups outside under the roof area. The child picks one Y-shape branch with twine yarn. The teacher asks then to choose materials from his/hers treasure bowl to twine between the yarn (from bottom to top and from side to side). And ask for teachers help if needed. After everybody are ready they explored the art works together. Then they pick one treasure to investigate further in the next activity. They all decided for the pine cones.

Activity 3: Another hike to the forest. Teacher shows pictures from a pine tree and children have to find it in the forest. They compare it to other coniferous trees. Now teachers asks them to collect only pine cones for the next activity.

Inside the activity continues with experiments. They say that you can predict weather with the pine cones. So they tried it out. Some of the pine cones were put to the water (to hot and cold water), some pine cones were left to dry on the windowsill by sun and some went to the dryer. After the lunch break and little sleep, they explored what had happened to the cones. They found out that in the water the pine cones stayed closed, and the ones under the sun and dryer had opened. So if the pine cone is closed it means that it is wet weather. And when the pine cones are open then it is dry weather! 

Afterwards everybody made lovely pictures for the mothers from the pine cones. The teacher cut the cones to suitable peaces, the children colored them and glued them with hot glue on the base from plywood which was also colored. Behind it they glued lovely things that the child had said about her/his mother.

Our Forest - CRAFTS FROM NATURE MATERIALS

THEME: MOTHER'S DAY GIFT

CHILDREN AGE: 5-7 years

OBJECTIVES: The child wants to make his mother happy.

MATERIALS/TOOLS: Glass jars, circles cut from cardboard, double-sided tape, scissors, glittering sand, moss collected from the hike, flowers, lichens, cones, plants, branches, etc. The book "We make from natural materials"

PREPARATION: The natural material collected from the hike (divided into groups and pre-dried) and the tools are placed on the table. Discussion and conversation: "I make a vase for my mother"

ACTIVITY: The child chooses a natural material to decorate the glass jar and the jar becomes a vase. First, double-sided tape is glued under the jar, then a circle cut from cardboard is attached to the jar. The jar is now completely covered with double-sided tape. The child chooses the tools he likes from the natural material collected during the trip and presses the decorative elements onto the vase with double-sided tape. Finally, it shakes the glittering sand on the vase. The children really enjoyed making vases.

All the vases were taken home so here are examples from where we took the idea for the art work.

Our Forest - OD STABLA - ŠUMA

OD STABLA - ŠUMA (FROM THE TREES - FOREST)

Od stabla-šuma is a short story by popular croatian writer Nada Iveljić. It talks about the origin of a forest on a mountain. The children liked the story very much, so we decided to make a poster.

It sparked interest in the children about trees, so our next activity was researching tree rings and an artistic activity – drawing with ink.

Then the children got the idea that we should have our own tree in our group. We made it out of painted roles of toilet paper and sticked it to the door. The children were bringing their photos on which they were standing next to some tree. We decorated our tree with these photos.

 

Our forest -The Spring Tree

 The youngest group talked about the seasons and how the trees look in the spring, summer, autumn and winter. They made a weather calendar on the board so they could also observe and make notes on daily basis. They put photos of the forests in different types of weather like sunny, rainy, snowy, cloudy and windy and then they would look out of the window and compare what they see outside with the given photos.

They talked about the current season and what kind of colors they see on the photographs. They were offered collage paper and paper rolls to make a spring tree.

The other group of older children had the same activity but in a different setting. After singing songs about spring and flowers they were given the opportunity to express themselves through an art form that includes 3D art using cardboard and paint. While they cut, glued and painted the teachers put instrumental music called "The Spring forest" so they could hear the sounds of birds singing, wind blowing etc.

Our Forest - Paper recycling and tree making

This activity started with recycling old papers we had in our bin. Children were ripping the paper, mixing in with water, squeezing and rolling it out with pins.

The end result were new papers that they can use for their art activity "The Spring Tree"

 

Our Forest - The Giving Tree

 Our youngest group had an activity where they read a story "The Giving Tree" and then the teachers offered them materials like fabric and collage paper to make their own trees and one group tree. They were learning about words like stump, stem, branches and fruit and then discussed what their trees have and why.

Handprints and finger painting.

Studying tree seedlings, branches and leaves.

Our Forest - Pretend play

One of the best ways to connect the project with the real experience that children have is to organize a space where they could have the opportunity to explore their senses and broaden their knowledge of the topic through pretend play.

We made a tree stump in the hallway where they could go in and pretend like they were in the real one. They would take animal figurines and played with them as if the animals lived there.

We also made a cave "Veternica" which is one of the most known caves on the hills of our mountain Medvednica that is situated on the north of our city Zagreb.

Children were building the entrance to the cave and pretended they were the bears living in them.

In the same space of the hallway we offered a lot of natural materials like tree barks, moss, tree branches and sawdust, cardboard rolls, different types of fabric, animal figurines etc. Each child had a chance to make their own forest and invite its friends to come over and play. They would make up stories of animals living in them and sometimes pretended that the seasons are changing and then change the layout of the forest floor.