Tree & Leaf Tot Trays

Here are my preschooler’s tray activities from our tree unit. I didn’t get too many action pictures this time. We’ve been busy trying to finish up our homeschool year strong. But I think there are enough pictures to give you a good idea of what Jet’s been up to.

Stick Size Sorting

(Idea from here)

Another use for a pile of sticks! My 4 year old worked on some early math skills with this stick size sorting tray. I started him off with fewer sticks and added more later to increase the challenge.

Leaf Rubbing Tray

Jet made leaf rubbings as long as he had paper. Having a brother or myself hold the paper down, and using triangular crayons, made this tray easier for him. I did have him do it solo a few times, but he got a little frustrated when the leaf moved around and his rubbing wasn’t perfect. We’ve done this as a group before, so my preschooler had high expectations for himself.

Button Tree Fine-Motor Activity

(Idea inspired by this blog post)

For this tray I threaded 3 pipe cleaners through an overturned colander and twisted them to make a tree onto which my little guy threaded buttons. Our tree got a bit wobbly with the weight of the buttons, so if you try this I’d recommend using a few more pipe cleaners for a stronger “trunk.”

Leaf Shadow Match Puzzle

This puzzle is part of a collection of file folder games that I keep on hand. This one is from A Teaching Mommy.

Leaf Art Tray

This art tray was a spin-off of a book activity that I’ll post about soon. Jet was free to do whatever he wanted here and I just love the cute leaf creations he made.

Tree Sequencing Cut & Paste Activity

This was a throwback activity for me. I did this same activity with my oldest son more than 5 years ago! My current preschooler did just as well with this simple cut & paste activity which basically consists of cutting progressively smaller triangles and then gluing them down from largest to smallest to make a tree. You can see a better picture of how to draw the cutting lines (from only a single sheet of construction paper) here in my original post. Jet was using spring assisted scissors here.

Seed Sorting Tray

(Idea from here)

Jet practiced sorting and used his fine-motor skills to operate the tweezers in this seed sorting tray. We had acorns, pine tree seeds, apple seeds, and I put beans into the fourth compartment because I didn’t have any other tree seeds handy. Jet also helped me find all these seeds and put the tray together. It was a great opportunity for observation and discussing some of the things we'd learned in our reading.

Leaf Patterning Tray

For this tray I put down 3 strips of tape and made patterns with fabric leaves for my preschooler to finish. The tape allowed me to easily change the patterns from day to day. I used fabric leaves because I didn’t want to confuse my little guy, but real leaves would have been so fun here. Real leaves and a scavenger hunt for the next leaf in the pattern? There’s an activity for another day!

Falling Leaves File Folder Game

This next activity isn’t a tray activity, but an actual game. You can play with 1 or 2 players, but reading is required so younger children may need help. This game provides a silly way to practice gross-motor skills, coordination, and balance. You can download it free from Your Therapy Source.

Don’t forget to check out our other tree activities:

Number Tree - Theme Reveal

Poetry Memorization - Trees

The Giving Tree - Leaf Crowns

Tree of Benefits - Ongoing Project

Linking up this post at:

Tot School @ 1+1+1=1

After School Activities, Inspire Me Monday, Practical Mondays Linkup, Literacy Musing Mondays, Thank Goodness It's Monday, Monday of Many Blessings, Montessori Monday, ABC Creative Learning

Littles Learning Linkup, Hip Homeschool Hop, So Much at Home

Everything Early Childhood, A Little R&R, The Natural Homeschool, Tiny Tot Adventures, I Choose Joy

Hearts for Home Blog Hop, Learn & Play LinkUp

Preschool Corner

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File Folder Games

We were too busy last week to do our letter of the week activities, but I wanted to share something else I was able to mark off my to-do list. I've been on the hunt recently for some new file folder games to beef up our stash of resources. Dude gets bored easily, so I'm realizing that we need a wide variety of resources to keep him interested and learning. And this trying to pull everything together last minute is getting tough on me, so I'm hoping that having more things ready to go and at my finger tips will take some of the pressure off.

My goal was to find a good variety of things for Dude. My plan is to pull one of these out occasionally, on a tot tray or fit into a weekly theme as appropriate. I think I found some neat things so I thought I'd share the new games as well as some older ones we have in case anyone is on the search for new resources.

Paint Chip Color Sorting
  

This printable came from COAH. Depending on which paint chips you use, it can be used to teach how colors can be different shades. 

Leaf Shadow Match

   

This is from 2 Teaching Mommies.

   
    
Paintbrush Color Match

   

This is also from COAH. This definitely wasn't my favorite puzzle to make due to all the pieces, but Dude loves slipping the paintbrushes into the correct pockets.

Air, Sea, Road, Track Sorting

 

   

This is from Printable Share. I printed it all at 50% of normal size. (I ran each page through the printer twice.)

Shapes Pictures Match

   

 

This is from 1+1+1=1. The object is to match the shapes to the correct examples of everyday objects.

Animal Sorting (farm, ocean, zoo)

  

This is from Homeschool Creations. I think it was meant to be made with the categories velcroed on, but I just glued them down and added the extra blue sheet as pictured above. There are 9 animal pieces for each category, so I'll probably add velcro dots to those to make it somewhat self-correcting.  

Magnifying Glass Animal Match

   

This is from Bible Story Printables. For this one you use a magnifying glass to match up the small pictures on the playing pieces to the larger pictures on the board.

Shamrock Hearts Color Match

   

This one is from File Folder Fun, and it's a tough puzzle! You match up the shamrocks that are the same colors, but in opposite positions. I printed this in "quick print"(draft) mode which I DON'T recommend. Because of the way I printed it some of the shamrocks were just too close in color so I added patterns to a few to help Dude differentiate.

Hope you find this list helpful!

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