Acorn - Bellota Lesson Plan

The last few days we have been learning about acorn or bellota in Spanish.  It all started while the kids were taking a walk with Grandpa and the pointed out the acorn to them. They have been looking for new acorn to add to their little ziplock bag ever since. They only have about 5 right now, but it has been plenty to make them curious, which gives them a desire to learn.

        

So, when I told them 'we are going to be working with acorns in the afternoon" their faces lit up with a 'How, Mami?"  Needless to say, nap was rather short that day. I wonder why. lol

I had some pictures with the outline of the acorn printed out from Enchanted Learning ready for them to use it. I found the image here.

Materials:

paint  (brown and white)

brushes

plate for mixing

construction paper

glue

Lesson:

1.   I began asking "What do you know about acorn?" They said 'it falls off a tree'. That's right, I said, it comes from an Oak Tree.  (Later this week, we will be doing a few more activities related to this particular type of tree)

2.   Then, we took time to observe and feel the acorn.  We talked about its colors and texture. The kids noticed the top (or Cupule) felt bumpy, hard, and that it was a different brown the bottom part (the nut). We discussed the names of those two parts of the acorn. 

3.   We also discussed that acorn are nut that squirrels and blue jays eat. 

Craft: 

Make an acorn

1.   Paint the Cupule brown and the Nut a light brown.  This was an opportunity to teach my youngest and review with my oldest how to change a color from darker to lighter.  She suggested white to make it lighter.  :-) 

2.   Once the cupule was painted, the kids made a new color and proceeded to paint the nut. 

3.   Let it dry for a little while, it took about 15 min for us. 

4.   This was the most fun part (in my opinion). Bring out some brown construction paper and let the kids rip it up as small as they can. Then wrinkle up all those small pieces.  

5.   Finish up by gluing the brown construction paper. 

Alternatively, you could ask the children what else or what would do they think could be used for creating a texture like the cupule?  (next time I'm going to do that!) 

This activity helps children:

activate prior knowledge

observe and use the sense of touch to investigate 

works on their fine motor skills (ripping, gluing)

works on reinforcing the letter of the week 'A'

long vowel sound for letter 'a'

As always, we worked at learning that acorn is called bellota in Spanish. The cupule is called cupula and the nut is called nuez. We also talked how about how each of the different part felt at touch. We wrote those down below: 

(The brown color is courtesy of my youngest.) 

This was a fun lesson that was completely unplanned for that day but it turned out enjoyable for the kids. 

Happy Teaching!

~Fabi