Fruit Tree Math

For the past few months Junior has been doing a unit on farming in school. We try to connect as much of his school work as possible to whichever theme we are working on.

In keeping with that theme we have been doing fruit tree math. We attached a tree shape to his felt/velcro board(also his puzzle board which I share how to make in this post). I used brown felt to cut out the tree shape. It sticks to his felt board but doesn't stay on very well for this activity so I added some velcro pieces to the back of the tree shape. I just used stick on velcro but the sew on type would be best(I was in a hurry). We attached tiny pieces of velcro to small light weight balls. Got out our laminated numbers and were all set.
This is just a different version of the meteorite math we did in this post which will give you more specific directions if needed.

You can do this activity to fit whatever the level your child is at. Throwing the "fruit" onto the tree or picking it off for counting activities, or placing a number on the tree first and then adding the correct number of "fruit" to match.
Junior is working on addition and subtraction so we first placed the problem on the lower part of the tree. He then threw the specific number of fruit pieces onto the tree.
For subtraction problems we would then "pick" the necessary number of fruit pieces off the tree.
I added his number choices to the center areas so they were within his vision field. He then uses his eye gaze to show me the answer. Junior needs this multi sensory type of activity to really "get" the concept being taught.

The clamp that can be seen holding the felt board is a photography clamp. It can't hold heavy items but since his felt board is just a foam board with the felt covering it is perfect. There is a clamp on both ends of the flexible tubing so one end can attach to his tray while the other attaches to the board.