Activity 1: Leaf rub

Activity type: Creation

Skills: Problem-solving, Science Understanding

Outcome: Outcome 4.1: Children Are Confident And Involved Learners – Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity.

Activity Description

Children choose different spots to work at the table. They place their piece of paper over the leaves (stuck down) and use the crayon to rub over the top of the leaf to reveal the leaf patterns. The children experiment by rubbing the crayon over the leaf surface to get the best result. Dried leaves work the best as they are more rigid, and the different parts of the leaf show up in the rubbing.

Activity Set Up

Set up a table with crayon pieces, a stack of paper and a basket of extra dried leaves. Tape 3 or 4 leaves to places around the table, pop a piece of paper on top and do an example leaf rubbing, so children can see what they need to do.

Activity 2: Seed pod hunt

Activity type: Nature time

Skills: Science understanding, Digital literacies.

Outcome: Outcome 5.5: Children Are Effective Communicators - Children use digital technologies and media to access information, investigate ideas and represent their thinking.

Activity Description

Children investigate the different types of seed pods provided on the table. They can try:

opening the seed pods
putting the seeds in containers and pouring them out
the tactical sensation of running their fingers through the seeds
using the magnifying glasses to look inside the pods or at the seeds when they are out of the pods
using the tweezers to practice picking up the small seeds
taking photographs of the seeds or pods
taking a photograph through the magnifying glass to see tiny details.

After the activity, share the photos with the students by either printing them out or displaying them digitally and ask the students what they find interesting. Record their observations for sharing.

Some seeds can be poisonous! A good example is Poinciana seeds. Although they are fascinating and lovely to play with, they can be mildly poisonous if ingested. Check with your local native plant nursery or Landcare group about which local seeds would be suitable. Seeds and pods should be dried for 2–3 hours in a low oven (90 degrees) to prevent mould.

Activity Set Up

Set up a table with a large flat tub and containers of seeds, pods, magnifying glasses, and tweezers inside. Set up the iPad nearby, opened to the camera. Set up a variety of closed pods, half-open pods with seeds still inside, and seeds taken out of a pod. You may like to provide some photographs of the seeds to help prompt children for the activity.

Activity 3: Forest floor books

Activity type: Quiet time

Skills: Foundational literacy

Outcome: Outcome 5: Children Are Effective Communicators - Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts.

Activity Description

The children explore tree-themed books in an outdoor space under a tree. If you don’t have a living tree in your space, reach out to a local arborist and see if they can donate a branch or two that you can either hang over the space or use to create a leafy cubby. If you don’t have an outdoor space, see if you can collect dry leaves and spread them on a blanket inside to mimic a forest floor. Just be careful about bringing in insect friends at the same time!

Activity Set Up

Set up a reading space under a tree with a picnic blanket, cushions, a basket of leaves and a mix of picture, story, and non-fiction tree-themed books. Find our favourite pages in the book and pop a leaf inside as a bookmark. Students can add leaves to their favourite pages for their friends to find.

Some of our favourites include:

Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker
The Giving Tree by Shel Silversten
Stuck by Oliver Jeffers
The Forest in the Tree by Ailsa Wild
Secondhand shops are great for big coffee table books with lots of pictures of trees and forests.

Activity 4: Hollow for a home

Activity type: Creation

Skills: Foundational literacy, Science understanding

Outcome: Outcome 2.4 Children are connected with and contribute to their world - Children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment.

Resources:

tree hollow template and creature cutouts - Possum, Galah, Boobook Owl
drawing materials (crayons, pencils, textas)
glue or sticky tape
scissors.

Activity Description

Children investigate the animals that live in hollows. They choose one of the animals (ringtail possum, galah, boobook owl) to decorate. They also decorate one of the tree hollow templates and cut out the hollow. They put the animal inside the hollow by gluing the two pieces of paper together. The hollows can then be added to a class tree.

Activity Set Up

Place the creatures, tree hollows and art materials on a table. You might like to use drawing materials (crayons, pens, pencils, etc.), paint or collage materials (feathers, pompoms, fabric scraps, etc.). You may need a place nearby to let the creatures dry or children can pop them straight into a hollow.

Create a tree that children can add their hollows to. You might use crepe paper and make a trunk and canopy on a wall. You might get a large cardboard box, cut off the extra flaps, and stand it up to make a tree trunk. You could even cut out a child-sized hollow at ground level so the children can go inside the tree. You might combine this with the Terrific Treehouses Activity. When children have created their animal inside a hollow, you can glue it onto the tree.

Activity 5: Terrific treehouses

Activity type: Imagination

Skills: Science understanding

Outcome: Outcome 4.3: Children are confident and involved learners - Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another.

Resources:

large cardboard boxes (big enough to fit a child or two inside!)
other cardboard materials such as tubes, rolls, sheets, small boxes, etc
paper in forest colours (greens, browns, beige, black)
leaves (paper or real leaves)
tape (masking or sticky)
pictures of treehouses
tree-dwelling soft toys! (think birds, possums, bats, lizards, koalas etc).

Activity Description

Children work together to create a connected treehouse play area. The large boxes can be used to create treehouse rooms and the flat boxes can create additional features, like walkway bridges to connect treehouses. If children are getting stuck for ideas you might ask prompting questions including:

How do you get from one place to the next? Are there bridges or walkways?
What special features does it need? Windows? Handrails? Ladders? A mailbox?
Can other creatures use the treehouse, too? Do they need little homes as well? (You might like to connect this activity with the Hollow for a Home activity.

Activity Set Up

Set up a loose-parts play area with cardboard boxes, forest-coloured materials, and leaves. If your children need inspiration, you might set up one large box as a tree with a hollow cut out at ground level. You could then place the other resources (leaves, tape, extra cardboard, soft toys, etc.) in the middle of the area with the tree house photographs to help spark their imagination.

Activity 6: Towering trees

Activity type: Busy Hands

Skills: Foundational numeracy

Outcome: Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners - Children develop a range of learning and thinking skills and processes such as problem-solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating.

Resources:

branches of different thicknesses cut into slices
a flat, sturdy surface (like a tabletop!).

Tree branch slices can be purchased online from various early years resource suppliers, or you can chat with your local ‘Men’s Shed’ or other volunteer groups to see if they can help you out. While you can make them with the children if you include tool education as part of your learning (a vice and a hand saw will do the trick!), it is easiest, safest and fastest to make them using a drop saw.

Activity Description

Children practice fine motor skills and establish early numeracy through explorational play. They identify which circles are bigger and which circles are smaller and identify the impact the size has when using the circles to build towers.

Activity Set Up

Using branches of various thicknesses, cut them into slices approximately 1cm in width. Set up the table with a tub of branch slices, empty spaces for building and one or two example towers. How high can we stack the circles before they fall over? Which circles (big or small) are best on the bottom and which are best on the top? You could add to this activity by arranging ten circles in size from smallest to largest and writing 1-10 on the circles. Children can try stacking the circles starting with one (the smallest on the bottom) and working up to ten (the largest) on the top and vice versa.

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