My family loves Tu B’Shevat, a lovely holiday that has gone through many transformations, some of which our Tu B’Shevat Shelfie + Starter Activities 2024 were able to capture with simple, fun, hands-on activities that allowed us to learn about and explore this holiday.
Tu B’Shevat, the new year or birthday of the trees, has its roots in a tax date, a kabbalistic seder, a planting holiday, and a call for environmental awareness and justice. In our family, we like to celebrate this holiday as a way to remember trees and nature and all the wonderful things they do for and as part of this earth.
What You’ll Need
- Your favorite Tu B’Shevat books (check out our recommendations here!)
- Your favorite Tu B’Shevat arts, crafts, toy sets, and activities that you already own and/or look below to see if any of ours inspire you to create similar ones!
Putting It Together
Here is the list of activities that I set up. Get inspired or grab whatever of your own! I also plan to add new activities to this Tu B’Shevat Shelfie as we create them.
- Tu B’Shevat Book Box + Tu B’Shevat Reading Challenge Bingo
- Tu B’Shevat Montessori 3-Part Cards
- Flower Threading Board
- Acorn Matching and Sorting
- Tree Animal Stuffies
- Pinecone Rubber Band Fine Motor Skill Activity
- Tu B’Shevat Memory Matching Game
- Harvest Sensory Tray
- Tu B’Shevat Category Spinner
- Harvest and Seven Species Felt Pieces
- Spindle Box
- Tu B’Shevat Counting Cards
- Nature Bits and Pieces Building Tray
- I Love Trees Collages
- Tu B’Shevat Prompt Signs
Finished & Loving It!
Tu B’Shevat Book Box + Tu B’Shevat Reading Challenge Bingo
Gathering all our holiday books together in a book box makes them so easy for the kids to grab and enjoy reading! We made this Tu B’Shevat book box a couple years ago by making leaf prints, so fun as an individual craft or gluing onto a box to make a book box.
Make sure to check out our free Tu B’Shevat Reading Bingo Challenge print out to add a little extra fun to your holiday reading!
Tu B’Shevat Montessori 3-Part Cards
We love using our Tu B’Shevat 3 Part Cards to give a short and sweet explanation of the holiday, its customs and traditions. It’s also a simple activity for the kids to practice image matching and for the older ones to practice their reading skills.
Flower Threading Board
DIY threading or posting boards are easy and fun ways to add a themed fine motor skills practice to your holiday. For this Flower Threading Board I cut a flower shape out of cardboard, drilled some holes into the petals, then set out some fake flowers for the kids to post into the holes. I had cut the flowers from the batch but made sure to keep a little stem so there’s something for the kids to use their pincer grasp on.
If you have real flowers in your garden this would be a lovely real life nature activity to try!
Acorn Matching and Sorting
I made these acorns a year or two ago and think they are adorable. I painted them in matching colors to help my younger ones with color exposure, identification and matching opportunities.
This year I kept out our color muffin tin from our Hanukkah matching activity and let that be an invitation if the kids wanted to match and sort, which the youngest one did. Having tree or nature related manipulatives can also very easily be an invitation for counting or creative play.
These acorns are from Woodpeckers Crafts. Make sure to use the code WithLoveIma5 for a discount!
Tree Animal Stuffies
We are huge animal lovers in this house so of course I wanted to include an activity related to one of the many reasons we so appreciate trees, for the food, habitat and shelter they give to so many animals. I grabbed a few of our animal stuffies that represent animals who have tree connections and set them out on the shelf as an invitation for whatever creative or imaginary play the kids wanted to engage in.
Pinecone Rubber Band Fine Motor Skill Activity
This pine cone activity was a fun one to observe in action. I had wrapped many rubber bands around a pine cone and my daughter took on the challenge of unwrapping them. She had to maneuver around the pine cone pokeys and how the rubber bands got twisted around each other. It’s a simple but very effective fine motor skill activity.
You could also leave the rubber bands off the pine cone and invite your kiddo to wrap the rubber bands around the pine cones themself.
Tu B’Shevat Memory Matching Game
I made this Tu B’Shevat Memory Matching Game last year as part of our Tu B’Shevat Activities Packet for Early Learners. It has all the seven species as well as some additional Tu B’Shevat symbols so it functions as a holiday review and a great matching and memory practice.
Harvest Sensory Tray
The kids made these adorable little fruits and veggies out of polymer clay a couple years ago. I loved bringing them out and setting them up on a sensory tray as a simple open ended sensory invitation.
You could also pair the tray with the Tu B’Shevat Category Spinner below, like we did with the Harvest and Seven Species Felt Pieces invitation.
Tu B’Shevat Category Spinner
We made this Tu B’Shevat Category Spinner years ago as a Tu B’Shevat seder activity. I love that it’s a hands-on way for the kids to review and practice the different categories that we eat from during the Seder, and as a fun activity to help us decide from which category to eat next during the actual Seder.
We used it during play for this year by having the kids spin then having them match one of the felt pieces that fit that category. You could easily do this with print outs of different fruits and nuts, manipulatives, or diy clay figurines. So fun!
Harvest and Seven Species Felt Pieces
I love these Harvest and Seven Species Felt Pieces I made years ago and have used them in a variety of Tu B’Shevat activities. This year I simply set them out as an invitation, with the spinner next to them, and the kids chose to spin and match the categories.
Spindle Box
Years ago we made this simple spindle box. It was a fun way to use our stick collection and I love what a great counting practice it was. This year I set out some Tu B’Shevat Counting Cards (yep, you can find these in our Tu B’Shevat Activities Packet for Early Learners!) and invited the kids to choose a numeral card, then count out that many sticks and put them in the correct corresponding section of the spindle box.
Tu B’Shevat Counting Cards
I have multiple types of counting cards available in the Tu B’Shevat Activities Packet for Early Learners and that I set out on this shelfie. These are a great way to expose children to numbers, as well as practice counting and sequencing. Print out multiple copies and you can play matching games as well. For the Tu B’Shevat symbols counting cards, you can of course introduce and/or review the holiday symbols as well!
Nature Bits and Pieces Building Tray
I love open ended invitations that allow for lots of creativity. This tray has our nature pieces assortment from Meadowbrook Playschool as well as a few extras that we’ve collected over the years added in. Use code WithLoveIma20 for a discount!
I loved watching the kids build towers, use the pieces as characters and just do whatever their imaginations inspired.
I Love Trees Collages
These I Love Tree Collages we made a few years ago are so sweet! They are great for holiday decorations and for reminding us of all the beauty in nature.
Tu B’Shevat Prompt Signs
I also added a few prompt signs on the shelfie this year. The words are related to the holiday of Tu B’Shevat, as well as activities on the shelves. The prompt beneath this word encourages to think a little deeper. I set these on the shelves so the kids could read the words and I plan to use the prompts during our Tu B’Shevat seder.
If you’d like to explore these prompts with your family, you can download and print them for free here.
Getting in the mood …
This year Tu B’Shevat starts Wednesday, January 24th and ends at sundown Thursday, January 25th.
I hope you found some inspiration from our Tu B’Shevat Shelfie + Starter Activities 2024 for beginning your Tu B’Shevat 2024 adventures! Continue with us, either here and/or on Instagram, as we explore trees, nature, the seven species, birthday celebrations and all things we feel grateful for with this beautiful earth as we prepare for and celebrate Tu B’Shevat!
Chag Tu B’Shevat Sameach!
We have a whole page dedicated to Tu B’Shevat, our Tu B’Shevat Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the Tu B’Shevat activities we plan to do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Tu B’Shevat Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, a wonderful way to introduce Tu B’Shevat! And, now we also have all 13 Jewish holidays bundled together in A Year of Jewish Holidays 3 Part Cards.
If you want to have a ton of Tu B’Shevat early learner activities ready at your fingertips, try our Tu B’Shevat Activities Packet for Early Learners! I am so excited about all the Tu B’Shevat-themed literacy, fine motor skills, math, and play fun!
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!
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