Making Cherry Blossom Trees

One of our 12:1:1 classes has been involved with an ongoing series at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. They have had the opportunity to see the gardens throughout the different seasons and have taken part in lessons to build vocabulary and plant their own flowers.On one of their most recent trips, they got to see Cherry Blossoms blooming. We decided it would be a great way to generalize learning and vocabulary by creating our own cherry blossom trees in the classroom.We started by reviewing pictures from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.We went on to use Cherry Blossom visual schedules to recreate the cherry blossoms from construction paper and tissue paper. 

The kids probably had the most fun ripping and crumpling the tissue paper. It was great for sensory input.This is a fun Springtime activity regardless of age. You can target key vocabulary (i.e. tree trunk, cherry blossom, rip, crumple) compare and contrast (construction paper vs. tissue paper) asking/answering questions between peers (i.e. what color do you want?) and requesting missing materials (i.e. I need glue/scissors/paper.)The visual schedule is currently available in English AND Spanish on the TpT store. Check it out! And please comment and share if you decide to do this with your kiddos.What activities and books are you using to bring in Spring with your students?