Drawing Leaves on the Tree

To reinforce our learning about the parts of a tree (roots, trunk, crown), I drew a tree on our dry-erase board as the children watched.  I talked out loud as I drew and mentioned that they could draw a tree themselves at the art tables during centers time.  I started by drawing the "ground" line, then added the roots below.  Then the trunk and then the branches.  I allowed each child to come up one at a time and add leaves to the "crown" of the tree.  Not only did this make the lesson more interactive, it gave them some important fine motor practice.  For some of the littles, simply removing the lid of the dry erase marker and putting it back on when finished is a challenge.  Finding a branch and drawing a leaf on it requires not only fine motor coordination, but also visual-motor processing.  It was interesting to see how each child approached this task.  Below you can see a photo of the tree after all the littles drew leaves on it.