Unit Five A fall unit study Ages 4–7
Acorns
$5.99 · One-time purchase
Look closely at oak trees, discover what an acorn holds, and follow the quiet work of squirrels preparing for winter.
Page two
The four books
Read aloud, more than once, in no particular order. Each one is annotated — why it is here and what to watch for. If one of the four is out at the library, four is not the point.
- The Oak Inside the Acorn — Max Lucado
- A Seed Is Sleepy — Dianna Hutts Aston
The books are not included and they are not for sale here. They are library books, which is the point.
Page four
The science lesson
An acorn is a seed with a tiny oak tree waiting inside.
It opens with what the parent needs to know, written for someone who has not thought about it since school. Then a demonstration to do at the table, and one question afterward.
“What is inside an acorn?”
Ask it once. Then be quiet and let the answer come, however long it takes.
And then the rest of it.
- The poems
- Traditional woodland rhyme, said aloud once a day until it is theirs by Friday. Then A short poem about oak trees, read once on the last day and deliberately not explained.
- The activity
- Collect, sort, and sketch acorns from different oak trees.
- The craft
- Make an acorn cap nature collage.
- Math
- Counting, number bonds to ten, tally marks, which pile has more, and word problems to read aloud — all of it about acorns.
- The copywork page
- “A little acorn holds a mighty oak.” on three-line ruling — two lines traced, the rest left blank.
- A devotion, five days
- 5 days, two minutes each at the table — a verse, a sentence, and one line to pray together. King James Version. Matthew 6:28 · Psalm 1:3 · Isaiah 55:10 · Mark 4:31 · James 1:17.
- Oak-leaf tea
- A make-believe woodland tea for dramatic play. The child’s job and the adult’s job are written out separately, so nobody has to guess who holds the knife.
- What you will need
- A short walk, acorns, paper, crayons, and a printer.
Take the acorns unit.
One purchase for the whole unit as a print-ready PDF. No account and no login — it arrives by email, and it is yours to print as often as you like for the children in your own house.
Here it is.
All five days of Apples, yours to print. A copy is on its way to your inbox as well — check the spam folder if it isn’t there in a few minutes.
Start with Monday: cut an apple across the middle instead of down through the stem, and look for the star.