Throughout the months of November and December, the children in Preschool 1 had been sharing about their Christmas trees at home. They were talking about how their trees were up and decorated and others indicated that they were able to help their parents put the decorations on the branches. To further this interest, an activity was created so that each child was able to practice their decorating skills, using miniature trees, lights, garland and ornaments. Fine motor skills were used when detangling the lights and garland, as well as when making an opening in the string for the branches to go through. Hand/eye coordination was observed as the children placed the ornaments on the branches and the stars at the very top. Some children were quick to learn that ornaments and Christmas trees can be very delicate. It was thought that all of the ornaments were plastic, but as one child was rushing to decorate her tree and pulled on her garland, the tree fell to the ground, breaking a couple of ornaments. A safety lesson was learned that when broken glass is found, to step away and tell an adult, so it can be cleaned up right away. Children were observed labeling the different colours that they saw and comparing the tree they were decorating in the classroom to the ones they had at home. One child said while putting on his lights, “My tree has white lights at home.”. The children seemed to really enjoy getting to decorate their very own tree, as they were very focused on the task and proudly showed off their finished creations.
