Sample Unit
A Tu Bishvat Curriculum
ט״ו בשבט
Circle Time
Sing "Happy Birthday" to the trees, flowers, and plants. Introduce the Seven Species — wheat, barley, figs, dates, grapes, olives, and pomegranates. Try to bring in a variety for the children to taste. Graph the results of the children's preferences on a large sheet of paper and display.
Discuss Shnat Shmita. Read "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein. Brainstorm how many types of trees the children can list.
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Each unit at Gani is designed to engage the multiple intelligences — meeting every child where their curiosity naturally takes them.
Naturalistic / Science
- Bring live worms (from a local pet shop) into the classroom for the entire unit. Store in a covered container with topsoil and provide magnifying glasses so children can observe them and learn how they help plants grow. In nice weather, this activity moves outdoors.
- Plant grass heads using grass seeds, nylon stockings, and potting soil. Pour 1 teaspoon of grass seeds into the toe of a stocking, add one cup of soil, tie the top with a rubber band, and place in a bowl. Saturate with water and leave to soak overnight. Once dry, decorate with a funny face using markers or paint. Water daily and grass should begin to grow within 5–7 days. Have fun trimming its "hair" as it grows (winter activity).
- During spring and fall, the children will experiment with planting various seeds, herbs, and plants in their outdoor planting boxes.
- On outdoor walks, make tree rubbings with chubby crayons and thin tracing paper.
- Explore the parts of a tree — roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits — and their uses: shade, oxygen, food, habitat for birds and animals.
- Study the parts of a fruit.
- Discuss the fruits of the trees and the fruits of the field.
Linguistic
- Hang a pocket chart on the wall with seven pockets, each depicting the picture and word of one of the Seven Species. Obtain samples of each (wheat and barley can be purchased from a dried-flower store) and place each in a Ziploc bag. Let the children insert the samples into the matching pockets.
- Vocabulary practice in both English and Hebrew: Tree, Leaf, Flower, Fruit.
- Mystery Basket: An apple and an orange (תפוח זהב = Gold apple). Children guess what is in the basket, then compare size and shape, color, texture (smooth or rough), and the pieces and seeds. Peel the orange, smell it, squeeze it, taste it.
Kinesthetic
Poems and body motions for Hebrew songs:
- Hashkedia Porachat — "The almond tree is blooming."
- Mi rotze tapuach zahav? Ani… Sheyavo elai veten lo shai…
- Tapuz echad yashav ba'argaz…
Interpersonal
- Set up a garden center or flower shop in the dramatic play area. Provide gardening tools, rakes, cash registers, silk flowers, watering cans, gardening gloves, and wrapping paper for flowers.
- Open a class fruit-and-vegetable store for buying and selling.
- Taste different flavors: sweet, sour, bitter.
- Compare different colors: orange, yellow, green.
Mathematical
- Use Trix cereal or another fruit-shaped cereal to graph varying amounts of each fruit shape. Draw a bar chart with the fruit shapes along the bottom and let the children tally the totals by coloring in squares with crayons.
Spatial
- Fruit stamp painting. Make stamp prints with exotic fruits such as star-fruit or dates. Dip them in paint, design prints, and label them. (Use a fork to steady the fruit while painting.)
- Paint an almond tree.
- Create paper oranges.
- Make a tree with handprints for branches.
- Build a fruit mobile.
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