Activities for 17 Trees

Ages 5-6

week 1 - sweetgum
collect fallen gumballs and use in mud kitchen / forest play
discuss that "a fruit is a suitcase for seeds"
collect a green gumball and watch it dry out and drop its seeds
read Pop! The Invention of Bubble Gum by Meghan McCarthy
look at tree/leaf cards in Match a Leaf deck

week 2 - red maple
look at tree/leaf cards in Match a Leaf deck

week 3 - sassafras
smell bark (cinnamon) and leaves (sweet lemon)
look at tree/leaf cards in Match a Leaf deck

week 4 - red oak
look at tree/leaf cards in Match a Leaf deck

week 5 - tulip poplar
look at tulip tree silkmoth specimen (Callosamia angulifera)
make tissue paper suncatcher in the shape of the tulip poplar leaf
look at tree/leaf cards in Match a Leaf deck

week 6 - shagbark hickory
taste shagbark hickory syrup
look at tree/leaf cards in Match a Leaf deck

Ages 7-8

week 1 - sassafras
smell bark (cinnamon) and leaves (sweet lemon)

week 2 - mulberry
taste mulberries
learn about the history of papermaking & make paper
learn about silk (see below) & look at silkworm coccoons

week 3 - white oak & red oak
grey squirrel portion of David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals

week 4 - sycamore
create fuzzy sycamore leaf artwork with baking soda paint

week 5 - dogwood
produce a natural blue dye using the bark of the dogwood tree

week 6 - paw paw
visit pawpaw patch and look for zebra swallowtail butterflies

Ages 9-10

week 1 - mulberry
taste mulberries
learn about the history of papermaking & make paper
learn about silk (see below) & look at silkworm coccoons

week 2 - white pine & red cedar
compare uses in firestarting (pine resin, inner bark of red cedar)
explain process for making pine needle soda
read Houses of Wood by Bonnie Shemie (pp.3-9, 23)

week 3 - persimmon
look for tiny new persimmon fruits up in the tree

week 4 - sugar maple
taste maple syrup
read Maple Syrup Season by Ann Purmell

week 5 - shagbark hickory
special guest Derek Ervin from Glacier's End
taste shagbark hickory syrup
compare process to that of maple syrup

week 6 - black locust & honey locust
read Karl, Get Out of the Garden! by Anita Sanchez
compare common names and scientific names

MULBERRY TREE & SILKWORMS

chapters from The Story Book of Science by Jean Henri Fabre (1917)
XXII - The Big Eaters; XXIII - Silk; XXIV - The Metamorphosis

an excerpt from "The Silk-Worm" by Mary Howitt is found on pp.146-147 of The Waldorf Book of Animal Poetry

Silkworms (Life Cycles)
by Donna Schaffer

Silkworms
by Sylvia A. Johnson


the Silk Moth is one of the animals in Bug Bingo

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