The After Christmas Tree

I heard about The After Christmas Tree from one of my favorite preschool teacher blogs that I follow, Teach Preschool.  It seemed like the perfect story for our first week back to school from Christmas Vacation.  The book is about a family that misses Christmas so much that they decide to have a winter party. They decorate their discarded Christmas tree with items that the creatures in their yard would like to eat.   

We did not have a Christmas tree to discard, but we do have a nice tree in our yard and lots of birds that we thought would enjoy a tasty treat.  We have been discussing how food can be scarce for wild animals in winter, and that we can help!  

During this lesson, the boys and girls were responsible for collecting and managing their own materials.

We focused on following directions and using ordinal numbers to describe what to do and when.

Since I opened SDS, we have been peanut free.  First because we had allergies, now because I feel it is the safest option for all of our learners.  You just can not know when a child is going to develop a peanut allergy.   

I have mourned the loss of  making pine cone bird feeders and apple smiles, but no longer!

I discovered what we shall refer to as "faux butter".  I looks like peanut butter, smells like peanut butter, behaves like peanut butter, and tastes NOTHING like peanut butter!  It is made from soy beans and worked great for us today.

The boys and girls spread "faux butter" on their pine cones.  

They were so meticulous and focused on this task.

Next, they took turns rolling and dipping their feeder in the bird seed.

We were tickled to have left over raisins from snack today that we could embellish our feeders with.  

The birds are going to love it! (until they taste the "faux butter")

Finally, we headed out to hang our feeders.

Now, the only thing left to do is wait and watch for the birds.  

Next week we will have a bird watching book available in the science center so that we can identify any visitors.  There will also be a journal where the boys and girls can document who visits our feeders with their drawings.