BUILDING A TREE

This activity took place in October while we were working on community building.  At circle time, I explained how we were going to work together and help each other to make a tree.  The preschoolers became inspired and at outside time started gathering logs and wood.  First, they tried to build up, but realized that the wood would not balance.  Eventually, they started setting it up on the outdoor stage and set the logs next to each other to create a base and balanced some wood on top to build up.  This was completely spontaneous on the children's part.  They did an amazing job of working together and helping each other.  I had been envisioning a tree that they would work on, glue, and create inside, but they had other fabulous ideas!  In this picture, they were trying to build up on a stump.                                                                                       

Rolling the logs in place...

Trying to balance.

Still working on balancing...

Adding more logs...

 This is how they decided to arrange the wood and logs in the end before going off to work and play together some more.