Teacher instructions

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

20 minutes

Tune in: What do trees mean to us?

20 minutes

Find out: Looking closely!

20 minutes

Take action: How can we help?

Tune in: What do trees mean to us?

Step 1. This lesson starts with a literacy hook! Choose your favourite book about a tree to read with the class. Some of our favourites include:

The Echidna and the Shade Tree, by Mona Green retold by Pamela Lofts (Marie's Favourite!)
The Lorax, by Dr Seuss (Thea's Favourite!)
Where the Forest Meets the Sea, by Jeannie Baker (Helen's Favourite!)
The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein
Leaf, by Stephen Michael King (Kirsten's Favourite!)
On the Way to Nana's, by Frances Haji-Ali and Lindsay Haji-Ali
A Forest, by Marc Martin
Stuck, by Oliver Jeffers (Jarryd's Favourite!)

Before reading, explore the book with your students. You might like to do a see-think-wonder activity. What can you see on the cover? What do you think this book is about? I wonder what could happen in this book?

After reading the book, share with the students why you chose this book and what makes the tree or trees in this book special to you.

Step 2. Now we're going to hear some other people talk about their favourite trees.

How the strangler fig tree got its name | Australia's Favourite Tree - ABC Science (youtu.be/B4XoYONdtb4)

Step 3. After reading this book, and hearing these people talk we have started to think about trees and how they are special to us. When you think about a tree what words come to mind? You can record the student's ideas in a word tree. You might like to create your word tree on the board, create a digital word tree using an online word cloud generator like PresenterMedia, or print out an extra large copy of our student worksheet. See the bottom of this Teacher Activity sheet for a completed example word tree.

Differentiation: Depending on the skill level of your students you could have them create word trees as a whole class, in groups, or individually.

Find out: Looking closely!

Step 1. Now it's time to go outside and find some trees. You will want to take some items with you to help your students look closely. These could include:

magnifying glasses
telescopes (cardboard tubes or other pipes)
cameras (either toys or real, so long as they can look through them)
rings that students can put down or hold up to look through (diving rings are a perfect size)

Ask the students to think about the trees at school. Which one is their favourite? Choose 2-3 of the suggestions to go and investigate. When you get to the tree, have the students use their looking closely devices to observe the tree. You can prompt them with discovery questions like the following:

Is the tree moving?
Is the tree alive?
Can you see the roots of the tree?
What is on the ground around the tree?
Can any find a leaf/gumnut/seed/stick on the ground that came from the tree?
Can you find any signs of animals? (you might find insects, reptiles, birds, or marsupials. If you can't see any animals, look for feathers, fur, nests, scratches, scat etc.)
How are these animals interacting with the tree? Are they eating it, living in it, climbing on it?
How is the tree connected to the environment? Are there vines/moss/lichen/fungi growing on it? Does it have mulch, soil or grass underneath it?

Step 2. Let's imagine! Find a place where the students can curl up on the ground. A natural surface like grass or tan bark is best, but be mindful of ant nests or other safety considerations. Talk the students through a short mindfulness activity that takes them through the lifecycle of a tree. We have provided an example script below, but you can change it up to suit the trees and animals that you would find at your school. Have the students start standing up, and use their bodies to move and represent the life cycle of the tree. If your students are anxious about doing this activity in front of their peers, you could also do it as an imagination activity with the students lying or sitting down with their eyes closed.

"I want you to imagine you are a tiny seed tucked into a gumnut high in the air. The gumnut dries out and cracks open, the wind comes along and shakes you free, and you fall down, down, down to land gently in the mulch. An ant scurries past ignoring you. A bandicoot snuffles by, digging small holes and gobbling up grubs from under the mulch. The bandicoot moves on, and it starts to rain gently. The rain washes you down into one of the bandicoot holes, and you're lightly covered up by the soil washing in after you. It's quiet and still. You can hear a worm munching its way through the earth.

The sun comes out, and you can feel the warmth soaking into the soil. You start to wake up and stre-e-e-e-tch one root out and down into the soil. Your first shoot pops up above the soil and puts out two little leaves. You grow a little more and start to lift up out of the mulch around you. A wallaby meanders past and pauses for a second, but chooses not to eat you and wanders on its way. It rains again, and you grow a little more and start to stretch up towards the sky. You put out your first flowers, and a bright blue-banded bee buzzes over and hovers around going from flower to flower until it has puffy yellow pants made of pollen and buzzes back to its nest. You keep growing and put out more flowers. This time you are big enough to hold the weight of a possum and a fat brush-tailed possum clambers hand-over-hand up your trunk, out along your limb and settles down to feast on the flowers. The possum eats its fill and wanders off in search of another snack.

You grow a little more up to your full height and settle down to get bigger and stronger with every year. A magpie family settles down in your branches and raises three squawking chicks. Eventually, the chicks throw themselves from your branches and flutter down to the ground. They hop around under the shade of your branches, and their parents stop by to feed them while they learn to fly. After about a week they finally take off, flying on their own. You have grown so big and strong that your branches have started to cast shadows over your other branches and they're not feeling the warmth of the sunlight any more. You let a branch in the shade die and fall off, and it leaves a scar behind. A family of kookaburras come and peck away at the scar and create a hollow in your trunk. The kookaburras start their own family in the hollow and have four chicks of their own.

One day a big storm comes roaring through, and your branches blow back and forth as the wind whips around you. With a big CRACK, your trunk splits and some of your branches fall away. The storm passes on, and you settled down with another scar, but this time cockatoos come to make their home. You are two hundred years old, with huge branches and birds, possums, insects and koalas sharing your canopy. A child comes along, sits down in your shade and leans against your trunk and closes their eyes."

When you have finished this activity, the students can say goodbye to their tree and come back to the classroom.

Step 3. Back in the classroom bring the students back to their word tree. We have the tree, but what else is missing? You might like to include:

soil, mulch, leaf litter, sticks, tan bark, fungi
insects, worms and grubs, birds, reptiles, marsupials
sun, rain, air, clouds
shade, shelter, protection.

Students who need support can draw these elements around the tree. Students who need extension can add descriptive words, i.e. wriggling worms.

Take action: How can we help?

Step 1. Who looks after the trees? Add these ideas to the clouds above the word tree. Answers could include:

gardeners
worms
park rangers
everyone
me!

Step 2. What is looking after trees? Add these ideas under the soil and roots of the word tree. Answers could include:

watering trees
keeping the environment free from rubbish
planting new trees
not chopping trees down.

Step 3. Watch this video on the Iconic River Red Gum. After watching the video add any new ideas to your word tree.

The cultural significance of the river red gum | Australia's Favourite Tree - ABC Science - (youtu.be/A8UZb_wqWYM)

Step 4. Ask students to complete their 'Me and My Tree' poem. You can either share the poem format on a screen, on the board or print off a copy of the worksheet for each student.

Reflection

You could create a display of the student poems around your Word Tree. Ask students to read several of the poems and consider what they liked about each poem. You can see our example of a completed word tree below:

Differentiated learning

Suggestions for supported and extended learning have been included throughout this lesson.

Schools Tree Day 2023 - Me and My Tree

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