Homeschool preschool letter O activities are centered around the Orchid. This lovely flower holds intrigue and perfection for those that are captivated by its beauty. In my lifetime I have had one orchid, and it did not live long. In my pursuit to learn more about flowers this one makes the list. That is why I decided to add it to my homeschool preschool nature study list.
Orchids are gorgeous, and require just the right conditions to keep alive. Teaching preschoolers how to identify flowers and care or them will help them as they grow older. Inevitably they will be among the few who can acknowledge one when seen. Hopefully, as homeschool moms we can grow and cultivate a love of nature and flowers in our children starting when they begin school. Preschool is the best time to start teaching through a nature study.
Homeschool Preschool Picture Study
First, choose a beautiful picture of an orchid. Allow them to look at the picture with you and discuss the color of the Orchid. Expand into what the scenery is around the orchid, naming off adjectives for them to repeat. This will begin a simple writing logic for the future and the words will have a place when needed. Preschoolers grow into good writers when the words they need are already ingrained in their minds. Utilizing big adjectives and little ones helps to grow their vocabulary. Using a Thesaurus is good in case you run out of words to use, or want to look up some new ones.
Then after a few adjectives are used, try them in a sentence describing the orchid. My kids are getting so good at picture study and pick up more in the images now than they used to when we started.
Letter O Handwriting Practice
Letter O is an easy letter to practice. Try my free printable letter O for handwriting. I have included at the top a few images of orchids. After they complete the O, point and say the name of the flower again. Orchids are not hard to pronounce and they can enjoy the hunt.
Handwriting practice is very important for preschoolers because it helps them with fine motor skills. When my kids were little we did a lot of writing with pencils and coloring with crayons. Worksheets were not the prerequisite, but I did have them draw a lot. I found this helped so much with future writing.
Homeschool Preschool Science
Teach science through this wonderful flower study. It will be so much fun for them to try experiments involving flowers. Try this experiment, but use an orchid instead of a carnation. Guessing the hypothesis is always my kids favorite part of an experiment. They like it because sometimes they guessed right. Using different flowers isn’t a bad idea as it will allow for further exploration of the topic.
Another great science experiment for kids is identifying different parts of the flower. Don’t dissect the whole flower at once, but go piece by piece each week with a different flower from my study. Then, it will be so easy to review the previous flower parts from the week before.
Nature Study for Preschool
Finally, a nature study. Grab an orchid from the store to observe for the week. Another great idea would be to catch an orchid show in the spring. We have a park near us that holds an orchid show yearly. It is a lot of beautiful flowers grown each year by the cities Orchid experts. Lots of photographers come in to get photo shoots with the various Orchids and their owners. Since it is right down the street, we try to make the show. After the actual judging day they keep the Orchids on display for a couple of weeks. I have in the past take n my homeschoolers to get some pictures and ask questions about the orchids.
As they walk around the greenhouse looking and learning from the information card we take pictures. From the pictures we draw our favorite orchid in our nature study books and write something next to it that we learned. Of course a preschooler wouldn’t be able to write everything down, but an older sibling or adult can do this for them. I have saved pictures we have taken over the years to keep on file. Hopefully someday they will look back and see how close they came with their own pictures.
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