5: The Giving Tree

“Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy.”

-The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein

They say that trees — specifically the forests they are in — are the lungs of the earth since they are responsible for producing the oxygen we breathe. Apart from their important role in our survival, trees have also provided humans with materials that we can use for everyday life. Mahogany and walnut trees are popular for furniture, while bamboos can be used to make shelters, bridges, and even clothes. In fact, coconut trees are called the tree of life because of the numerous ways that we can use its parts to help us live better.

As we deepen our inquiry on different materials that we can experiment on and investigate, we took a closer look at trees and discover all the bountiful materials that they give us. In class, we read the book called The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

The story begins with a tree who loved a little boy. They always played together and both of them are happy. The tree gave the boy many gifts in the form of materials that the boy can use to make his life richer.

Just like in the story, we discovered that trees have made our life richer, too. Trees give us an important material -- wood -- to make many different things that we use everyday.

Our school is made of wood.

Our furniture is made of wood.

Our toys are made of wood.

We also thought of different things that we can build with wood.

We built houses with wood.

We built bridges with wood.

We built buildings with wood.

We discovered that wood is a good material for building things.

We decided to visit our dear friend, The Giving Tree, once more to see if we could collect some wood that we can use for our experiments and investigations. 

We saw that the tree's gifts are already bountiful on the ground. We collected as much of the wood as we could. Look at how much we got! We're so excited to see what we can make with them. 

This week, the children also began their inquiry on our yearlong unit under Who We Are. In this unit, we will be learning about our relationships with our family and friends. The children shared their family pictures and talked about their family members with the class. They also answered questions from their teachers and peers about their family. 

We even got lucky and had a special visit from Louis' family members for his birthday.

Happy birthday, Louis! 💚

We discovered that families come in different forms and sizes. In school, we also have our Kindergarten 2 family whom we spend most of our time with everyday.

It will be wonderful to see how our relationships in class will grow and foster throughout the school year. Maybe we will even discover ways on how we can just be like The Giving Tree -- someone who makes our friends and family richer by sharing the best parts of who we are.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Your Kindergarten teacher 

Pam