Activities to get you and your children outside

III. Trees and Other Plants: Activities that facilitate the exploration of woods and fields

 

A Natural Perspective

Best age range: all ages
Location: under a tree in your backyard or nearby park
Best Time: day
Season: any
Special materials: picnic blanket or beach towel
What to do: With your child, lie on your back on a blanket under a tree. Look into the branches. Can you see the top branch? What patterns do you see? What other things are present? What animals can you find moving around in the tree? How do you think the tree will change with the wind and seasons? Close your eyes and listen to the leaves move in the wind. What other sounds do you hear? Feel the air on your face, arms and hands.

Meeting Trees

Best age range: all ages
Location: any area with trees
Best time: day
Season: any
Special materials: bandana to use as a blindfold
What to do: Blindfold your child and gently lead them to a tree. Stand with them while encouraging them to get to know the tree through touch and smell. Encourage them to feel the bark, find branches, smell the bark and estimate how big around the tree is by hugging the trunk. While your child is still blindfolded, lead your child back to where you started. Now take off the blindfold and have them try to find their tree. When they find their tree, ask them what senses helped them to locate their tree? What things made that tree unique? Have them blindfold you and lead you to a tree.

A Family Tree

Best age range: all ages
Location: any area with trees
Best time: day
Season: all
Special materials: camera, crayons or colored pencils, scrap paper for writing (optional)
What to do: Take a walk in your yard or around a favorite park that you can visit often throughout the year. Have each member of the family pick a tree. Visit your trees often. This is a good way to remember a family member when they are gone whether they are just traveling or have died. You can plant a special tree to celebrate important family occasions, a birth, death or marriage. Have children make records of their family trees. You and your family can record the diameter of your tree’s trunk, determine the reach of the its branches, make bark rubbings using crayons and paper, record what animals use the tree, smell its flowers and plant its seeds. Children can take pictures of the tree in its first snow or after a big wind storm. The possibilities are endless! If the tree dies, you can save some leaves or cut sections of the branches or trunk as remembrances. Enjoy the cycle!

Trees and Leaves

Best age range: all ages, especially upper elementary and older
Location: any area with trees
Best time: day
Season: all
Special materials: tree identification books, bags for collecting leaves, camera, journal
What to do: Walk outside! How many trees do you see? Are they all the same? What is different about them? Compare the leaves, bark, flowers, buds — everything you notice. Collect the different leaves you find or take pictures. Press the leaves in a book or journal. Use a field guide to identify the trees. Can you identify them by leaves, bark and twigs? If you having trouble identifying the trees, take some leaves to a local nature center, park, arboretum or natural science museum.

Outdoor Sculpture Project

Best age range: 3-year-olds and up, especially middle and high school students
Location: backyard, or park where moving sticks and making small shelters is permitted
Best time: day
Season: all
Special materials: natural loose parts such as branches and sticks, River and Tides DVD about sculptor Andy Goldsworthy
What to do: If possible, watch River and Tides, a DVD about sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Andy creates works in nature with things he finds and without using tools. The pieces are magical, captivating, poetic and ephemeral. They are documented through film and photography. The work he creates is unbelievably creative and sensitive to the environment in which he’s working. After watching the film, you and your child can go outside and creature your own sculptures. No live material should be damaged during the process. Take picture of your sculpture. Visit over time to see how the seasons change your art.

Whistle A Grassy Tune

Best age range: 3-year-olds and up
Location: any grassy spot
Best time: any
Season: all, especially warm summer nights
Special materials: fat blade of grass
What to do: Find any long, fat piece of grass, although crabgrass works best. Pick a blade of grass and place it between your thumbs, holding it tightly at the top and bottom. The natural curve of your thumbs should leave a small opening in the middle. Put your lips to your thumbs and blow hard through the opening. You might have to practice a bit before getting a good sound. Different kinds of grass will make different sounds. Experiment and see what sounds you can make.