Exploring Wood

We have been making lots of lovely creations at our woodwork bench which got us wondering, where does the wood come from? We knew the answer would be found online, we asked the question and it took us to a short film we could watch describing how wood comes from the trees.

We had a look round the room to discover what we had that was made from wood.  We found chairs, storage cupboards, construction blocks, a toy toaster from the home corner.
“We have a lot of wood in here”.

We then took our search out doors into the garden which was full of different pieces of wood lots of different sizes, textures and shapes. We have sections of tree trunks in our garden so we could see the whole trunk of the tree. We could see the bit right in the middle, called the pith. Then we could see lots of rings and finally we could see the bark on the outside of the trunk. When you remove the bark, the wood changes colour underneath. “Some of the bark just falls off in the forests 🌳 I see it when I go to the woods”

We then moved back to our woodwork area and chose some materials and fun resources to make a new wooden creation. We all worked together and discussed what we would like to add to our work of art.  The children talked about the sizes and textures of the materials they were using to make their models. These included a cat house, planes, chairs and beds for their dolls. All the while this was helping develop their fine motor skills plus hand and eye co ordination. The children’s skills and imaginations plus creativity are amazing, watching what they create each day is lovely.  We would love to receive any pieces of wood or bark you might find when out and about.