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Arbor Day Games & Activities
Games and Activities Sorting Collect either leaves, flowers, or buds from a variety of trees. Place them in a center. The students can talk about what is alike and what is different. Have tree books available for the students to see the pictures. The students can group the leaves by size, shape, color, etc. Who lives in trees?
Let children make a tree. Then give them pictures of bunnies, birds, and other animals. Let them think about where the animals might live. . . hints such as wings help birds fly, so they can live high in the tree help. They can paste the animals on their paper on the ground, under the tree, in the tree, etc. Seedling In the fall I dig up a seedling from my yard, pot it and bring it into the classroom. We watch the leaves turn color (I live in NJ) and then fall off. I water it when it rains or snows. Now we are waiting to see if it will bud and bloom again. Trees in the wind
Divide the group into two teams, trees and winter wind. Stand trees on one side of the room, wind on the other. Trees must decide what kind of tree they are and choose one person to represent them. Trees walk towards the wind and their spokesman asks wind person to guess what kind of tree they are. Depending upon their knowledge, he can give clues to direct the winds' guesses. When wind guesses correctly, it races to tag trees, while trees race back to their safety line to try to escape. Tagged trees join the wind. After a couple of goes, let trees and wind change sides. Block Area Add evergreen trees (Cut from 1 inch thick pine board into tall triangular trees in various sizes. Keep the bottoms flat and wide so they are easy to stand up. Sand smooth - can use a non-toxic green stain for a pretty finish.) Vinyl forest creatures. Display pictures of forests and logging trucks. Provide a couple of wood trucks to load and unload with the logs - the logs can be cylinders from the block set or logs made from smooth straight branches cut into lengths that fits the trucks. Leaf hunt
Let children go on a leaf hunt. See how many different shapes of leaves they can find. Bring them back to the classroom, where you can have a book of leaf shapes. Help the children to learn the names of the leaves they found. Some of the names are great, because they look like the leaf (triangular, linear, etc.) Also note what kind of trees the leaves belong to. Ring counting
If you have a slice of an old tree, children can count the rings to find out the tree's age. Sand and Water Table Wood shavings in the sand/water table Class Tree Use plaster of Paris to put a branch in a bucket, children can decorate branch with pinecones, assorted leaves, make their own leaves from paper.... Manipulatives · Provide a hand drill for boring holes, and a hammer and large head nails for pounding into pine boards. · Add tree cookie cutters to the play dough tools. Leaf observation Collect leaves from a variety of trees. Place them and a magnifying glass on the science table for the children to explore. Dramatic Play Turn the dramatic play area into a greenhouse, provide pots, watering cans etc. Sensory Make a feely box with parts of a tree inside, bark, seeds, flowers, etc. Discussion Talk about all of the uses for trees: Paper is made from wood, homes, boats are built from wood, we can burn wood to provide heat for warmth or cooking. Large And Small Select leaves from nearby trees. Collect a large and small leaf from each tree. Press the leaves between two large books to flatten them. Protect the leaves by preserving them in wax or by placing them between two sheets of clear adhesive paper and trimming to within an inch of the leaf. Place the larger leaves on the table. Place the smaller leaves in a box. Ask the child to select a leaf from the box and match it to its partner on the table. Recipes and Snacks Have tree shaped foods for lunch and dessert: Broccoli, celery stalks/green gumdrops stacked like a pine tree or inverted sugar cones placed on some crushed Oreo cookies (for dirt) Tree Walk Take kids on a walk or to a park to look for trees. They can even give the trees big {{{hugs}}}. Have them compare trees by sizes, colors, types of bark, types of foliage.
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