Celebrating Trees with Preschoolers
Trees are one of those natural elements that children often talk about. It can be a joy to rediscover this fascination with trees through the ideas of a child. We have rounded up a few ways you can learn more about trees with your little one.
Discuss the Benefits of Trees
There are so many ways trees help us and the environment. By asking questions, you encourage children to think deeply and gain confidence that they can figure things out. You can also model how to find answers if you are not sure of the right answer to their question. Here are few questions to get you started:
- Who uses trees as homes?
- What do you notice about trees?
- How do you think trees help us?
- What type of food can come from trees?
Try Identifying Different Trees
Walk around and see if you can pick out certain trees. Focusing on distinct features like leaves, bark, fruits, flowers, and even small can make it fun and engaging for your child. Here are some tree species that are relatively easy for preschoolers to identify:
Cedar trees have scale-like leaves and often a distinctive aroma.
Oak trees are common and distinctive with their lobed leaves and acorns.
Maple trees are recognizable by their leaves that are shaped like a hand and often have vibrant fall colors.
Pine trees have long, needle-like leaves bundled together in clusters and often produce cones.
Known for their fruit, apple trees are familiar to children due to their apples, which can vary in color and size.
Birch trees have distinctive white or silver bark that peels in thin, papery layers. They also have small, triangular-shaped leaves.
Palms are easily recognizable have tall trunks and large, fan-shaped or feather-like leaves.
Read Books about Trees
Look for stories that feature trees as characters or books that explain how trees grow and their importance in nature. Here are a few to get you started:
Tap the Magic Tree
This highly interactive book asks your child to help one lonely tree change with the seasons.
Because of an Acorn
Enchanting die-cuts illustrate the vital connections between the layers of an ecosystem in this magical book.
Ultimate Explorer Field Guide: Trees
A book full of real photos and life-like illustrations with tips for identifying different kinds of trees.
Visit an Arboretum
If you are fortunate enough to have a local arboretum, it can make a great outing. Add some extra fun to your explorations with these activities:
- Teach your child about how trees change throughout the seasons. Depending on the season, point out features that indicate how the trees are changing for that season compared to others.
- Make a science journal by creating leaf or bark rubbings. Place a piece of paper over the leaf or bark and gently rub crayons over the paper to create the texture and shape.
- Notice the different sizes of trees and try to point out trees at different stages of growth. Everything from a sapling to a giant tree hundreds of years old.
Do Tree Crafts
Art is one of the best ways for a preschooler to interpret and process the world around them. Here are a few easy crafts for exploring trees:
- Create a four-season tree by drawing or painting a tree with bare branches on a piece of paper. Use cotton balls for snow on winter branches, green tissue paper for spring buds, cotton swabs for summer leaves, and red, orange, and yellow tissue paper for fall foliage.
- Collect a variety of leaves during a nature walk. Provide your child with glue and paper, and let them create leaf collages by arranging and gluing leaves onto the paper in different patterns or designs.
- Have your child dip their hands in brown paint and make a handprint trunk on a piece of paper. Then, using green paint or markers, they can add fingerprint leaves all over the branches.
BONUS:
Go on a Nature Walk
Help kids explore the world outside with our fun Nature Quest, a free scavenger hunt made for preschoolers.
