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You are here: Home / Archives for Tree Crafts

Tree Crafts

Free Trees Unit Study

Besides the fact that nature studies are the best way to enjoy the world God created, I love the fact that they are so easy and require very little money or preparation (aside from a couple of good field guides and such).  You really don’t have to have a very structured curriculum or one at all for your children to absorb and learn a lot.  Just get outside and dig deep into whatever topic you are interested in.

Investigating Trees in the Field

Grab your nature journal, a field guide, water and take a walk out into your own yard or a local park and take a deeper look at the trees. Of course, you have noticed them before but how closely have you really looked?

This time notice the bark, the limbs, the leaves, what types of animals and insects make their homes in and on a tree? Does it bear fruit? Investigate a woodpile, what is different about the cut wood from a rooted tree? Find holes made by woodpeckers or boring insects, carefully inspect knots, and exposed roots.

Take out your nature journal and draw a tree or a section of a tree. You can identify it at home later on at home if you are not able to while out in the field.  Look for fallen trees and note the roots, are they wider or deeper root systems? What kind of creatures make their home in a fallen tree? Does the tree produce food for animals or humans? Gather leaves, small fallen branched, acorns, pinecones, and other parts of trees to observe more closely at home.

Use a camera or smartphone to take photos of knots, leaves, signs of animal life, roots, and other parts of trees.

Younger children will enjoy gathering fallen sticks and leaves to bring home, investigating knots and rotten logs as well as making tree rubbings of the various trees you find.

If time and weather permits visit different areas to observe as many different trees as you can. Find trees that produce food for humans as well- citrus, apple, pecan, maple, etc…

Investigating Trees at Home

Once you have enjoyed a wonderful hands-on investigation of trees in their natural habitats you can continue it at home no matter what the weather is like.  Pick up an inexpensive tree slice from the unfinished wood section of your local craft store, I have a large one, some small tree slices that were bought for crafts and these little bitty birch slices I scored a whole bag of at Dollar Tree.   

Use these to check out the bark a little closer, count rings, measure the height, width, and circumference of the tree ring. Test the softness of the wood.

Use the photos you took out in the field to help you identify the trees, fungi growth, and other characteristics.

Pine Cone Science

If you were lucky enough to come across a few pine cones on your nature walk, you can use these free pine cone science notebook pages to expand learning. Students can color, label, and identify different parts of a pine cone.

Leaf Investigations

Grab some of the leaves you gathered from your nature walk and drop several different kinds in a large glass or bowl of water, be sure they are completely submerged. Be sure your leaves are fresh, this won’t work with dried out leaves!

Leaf Science Project for Kids

Set your bowls in a sunny window, you will need to leave them alone for a few hours.

Come back after a couple of hours and observe what you see. Do you notice the bubbles forming on the surface of the leaf? Do the larger leaves have more bubbles?

The leaves are using photosynthesis ( converting sunlight into energy) and they are releasing the excess oxygen and water that they do not need. Using the water gives us a pretty cool look at how the process works, something we would not normally get to see!

Leaf Identification Activity

While you are waiting for your leaves to bubble grab a field guide or other book, we are loving our Nature Anatomy books as a reference, and see if you can identify the leaves you found.

Try some fun art projects with the leftover leaves like pressing and drying them between the pages of a book to add to your art journal, laminating a few for a fun little placemat, or making a leaf collage.

Parts of a Leaf Printables

For students who are ready, you can add in our free parts of a leaf printables. This set includes coloring pages, worksheets, cut & pates labeling, and notebooking sheets that are sure to liven up your leaf nature journals.

Leaf Art Project for Kids:

Students of all ages will love to make these stunning zentangle leaf art prints. These oak leaves turn out just as unique as the children making them! You’ll find a free printable template and step-by-step instructionss to create these fall beauties here.

Books About Trees for Kids:

Here are some fantastic tree books for reference, tuck a field guide for your area into your nature pack for deeper study out in the field!

Tree Vocabulary:

Branch, trunk, bark, photosynthesis, transpiration, deciduous, coniferous, forest, roots, leaves, canopy, rings, deforestation, blossom, foliage, and dendrophile.

Choose words from above depending on your child’s level to use as spelling and vocabulary words during your study. Use them as writing prompts for journaling, create sentences label the parts of the tree during your nature journaling.

Choose some trees that are in your area and include these as well – Ash, Alder, Maple, Douglas Fir, Birch, Pecan, Lime, Oak…

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Fall Science Experiments for Kids

This helpful set is filled with a week’s worth of fun, educational math games, hands-on activities, science experiments, art projects, early readers and writing prompts. Everything you need for fall to add a little holiday fun to your kindergarten or first-grade classroom this year!

Science:

This set includes five simple autumn science experiments and challenges. Each thematic activity guides students through a fun, hands-on science exploration with very little prep-work. Students work their way through the scientific method using the step-by-step science journals. Each experiment includes a follow-up activity for added learning.

Math:

Each day students will play a fun Thanksgiving themed game or activity then follow up their learning with a lesson sheet to show mastery. Games focus on learning to frame numbers to ten, basic addition, counting to 100, and counting by 10’s.

Art:

We include five stunning fall art projects that are perfect for Thanksgiving. Each project comes with a full photo tutorial, printable templates and easy to follow materials list. Students work with oil pastels, paint, textures, blending and more.

Reading:

This set includes three early readers covering social studies and history. Each story includes a carefully controlled word list and incorporates key vocabulary for extended learning. Students are provided narrative and comparison writing prompts that are not only simple to follow, but would make wonderful educational keepsakes.

Take Home:

T is for Take Home Review Sheets. These sheets can be used as review work in the homeschool classroom or as homework in a standard classroom. Each page features reading, writing, vocabulary, and character thinking points.

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Pine Cone Science Printables

September 21, 2015 By Valerie Mcclintick 1 Comment

PartsofaPineConeHeader

With Fall right around the corner, I’ve been trying to come up with as many hands on science printables as possible! One thing there always seems to be an abundance of around our property is pine cones.  Pine Cones can be great learning tools in your classroom.

Pine Cone Science Printables  This set includes a Cut and Paste Worksheet, Chart and Blank Labeling Sheet, Notebooking and Coloring Page.  The pine cone clipart is also available for those of you who like to ake your own teaching resources, just be sure to read our terms of use first.

Learning Ideas: Start with a nature walk to collect pine cones, then take them back into the classroom.  Submerge pinecones in water to watch them close up.  Extract seeds from pine cones and then break open to look inside.

More Botany Printables

More Science Printables

 

 

Filed Under: Nature Crafts, Science Projects, Tree Crafts, Worksheets Tagged With: clipart, journal notebooking, pine cone, science

Fall Leaf Art Project

October 16, 2014 By Valerie Mcclintick 5 Comments

There are so many amazing Fall Leaf Art Projects online that it’s hard to go wrong! We’ve done quite a few over the years with great success, but this year I think we’ve hit gold with our Watercolor Fall Leaf Art Project for Kids!

This art project technique is inspired by these DIY Crystal Gems I found at Small for Big. (They are beautiful aren’t they? I think we’ll be making them soon too!)

Fall Leaf Art Project:

Materials: 

  • Fall leaf
  • Watercolors
  • Watercolor Paper
  • Watercolor Pencils

(Watercolor Pencils are optional, I explain why below)

Step 1: Trace a leaf shape onto your paper.  If you have little ones you might do this part for them while they hold down the leaf.

Step 2: Draw a dot in the middle of your leaf.  Use a ruler to draw straight lines from the dot to the pointy end of each part of your leaf.  If you’re leaf doesn’t have many distinctive points, try to just spread out five or six diagonal lines.

Step 3: Draw connecting lines for each of your diagonal lines.  If your leaf has many points you can use them as guide lines for where to draw another shape. We’re trying to make sharp shapes like triangles, rhombus, etc.

Step 4: This is how your leaf will look when done drawing.  It’s sorta like a snowflake!

Step 5: Using your watercolors, begin filling in each shape with a different color. Try to make parts of the shape with BOLD and DARK color, and other parts with white or watered down color. You can use a napkin to blot out color and make white areas. This is great for making texture as well.

Step 6: Continue to fill in your shapes by alternating colors.  We’re sticking mainly to Warm colors like reds, oranges, yellows, but don’t be afraid to add in some browns, purples, and greens too.  These are all colors you’ll find in a fall leaf.

Step 7: Using a black watercolor pencil outline your leaf shape. You can use a sharpie marker as well, but I like the way a watercolor pencil “bleeds” into the painting a bit.

All Done! Frame your picture on black for a stunning display!

I love this project because the materials and the mess are minimal and children of all ages can participate. My 5 year old son did this Fall leaf and it turned out amazing!!

Here is a quick photo you can Pin for Later

Find Fall Leaf Templates, Coloring Pages, Worksheets, Sciene Resources and more here.

Filed Under: Fall Learning Resources, Tree Crafts Tagged With: art project, fall leaf, homeschool, kids

Seasonal Affective Disorder

March 9, 2009 By Valerie Mcclintick 1 Comment

SAD, isn’t it? That so many people suffer from these winter blues. I think it is, and when I was a first year Psych student, I was convinced that I suffered from SAD (among about 9 other disorders…..all on a sliding scale of course….) But I think that I’ve since decided that,
Really….I just don’t like Winter.

(Okay, I like it because God created it. I know that we need to have the cold and the snow and the rain and the clouds for some grand master circle of creation that He has instilled upon this earth. But I don’t enjoy winter as much as I enjoy, well, say……a hot fudge sundae, or a walk on the beach, or even a root canal if I’m completely honest………)

But this morning there was hope! This morning
WE SPRANG FORWARD.
……figurativly anyway, because we actually slept in accidentally and missed the first half of service. But there was hope!

So as I count down the days until Spring (12 more to go) I thought we’d throw a little “Seasonal” learning into our Nature Studies. Sissy continues to learn about trees and all things related, so we made a little 4 Seasons Wheel Book.



You Can Click Here to Read more about how we made it

Filed Under: Life, Nature Crafts, Tree Crafts

Nature Calls…..

March 8, 2009 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment


Nature Journal

……well, okay, that was a bit misleading I guess. But since we’ve been on the Nature kick lately, I’m running out of cute “puns” to call my blog posts.
(someone send some ideas in quick before I hurt myself).

Anyway, it was time to put all my scrapbooking skills to good use and make something useful from those adorable paper-bag minibooks.

So Sissy has been working very hard on her own Tree Journal (she is so proud of it, that every time she adds another fact to the book, she run’s over to Daddy and has him read through the entire book again to see what she’s added.) It’s flippin’ adorable.

Click Here to read all about her amazing Nature Journal.

btw- She’s learning from one of our favorite text books

Filed Under: Nature Crafts, Tree Crafts

Branching Out a Bit….

March 8, 2009 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment


Today we had a grand ole time learning more about trees, how they sustain life and how they are useful for many things…….including crafting!

Tell Me Tree

We are reading from the book, “Tell Me Tree” by Gail Gibbons which is just perfect for her because there is lots of information, without being to “wordy” if you know what I mean.

Anyway, we took a nature walk outside, collected some sticks and sat down at the table trying to figure out what to do with them. (besides use them as swords, as my three year old hastily recommended)

Here’s what we came up with. We made these fun little picture frames, that Sissy is so excited to give out to family members for upcoming birthday presents. (So dear auntie, if you’re reading this….act surprised).

Click Here for Photos and instructions for making these cute little tree frames.

Filed Under: Nature Crafts, Tree Crafts

Hoooo’s in the Trees?

March 7, 2009 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

Today we learned all about the different kinds of animals that live in trees. After learning that we have both conifers and broad-leafed trees in our yard, my children were excited to learn about the different “wild”-life that inhabited them. (lol, wild is in quotes because, really….how wild can a city squirrel get?)

Anyway, I was sitting there trying to figure out just how exactly we could come up with a craft about these adorable animals, and finally the idea struck! Why not pull out our trusty How to Draw 101 Animalsbook, and figure out how to even draw them. So after we found out how to draw the little buggers we decided that we needed to make trees for them to inhabit, and this was the best we could come up with. Yeah, it’s not one of those “Earthy” crafts that make you want to go trekking through the Oregon wilderness, but it’s definitely a keepsake craft…..I mean just look at those cute little branches!

Filed Under: Bird Crafts, Nature Crafts, Tree Crafts

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I am a Christian mother of four, with over 13-years experience homeschooling in Southern Oregon. The resources and products I create are designed to keep the prep to a minimum while also bringing a little educational fun to your classroom

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