Our summer and out-of-school-time toolkit is all about connecting kids with trees in their community.
What “wood” we do without trees? Tree Trekkers gives kids a chance to learn all about trees — their role in the ecosystem and in climate change, their characteristics and life cycles, their many benefits to humans and to other species, the stories they tell us about our history, and how trees, forests, and parks have inspired art, music, and literature.
Trees often get taken for granted, but we'd be in trouble without them there to provide oxygen, improve our air quality, clean our water, and slow the impact of climate change. We’d miss delicious foods, shade, and building materials. And many animals, plants, and insects deprived of the habitat trees and forests provide would not survive. Without trees, life on Earth would be much harder, if not impossible!
Tree Trekkers will help you help kids go on a tree parts scavenger hunt, take treks through parks or forests, keep a tree journal, develop a field guide to local trees, learn about carbon capture, advocate for trees in their community, create a tree sculpture, and write poems for a “poetree.”
Our free Tree Trekkers toolkit for educators, summer program leaders, librarians, and parents provides hands-on activities to pair with high-quality children’s fiction and nonfiction, along with videos, websites, apps, writing exercises, and outdoor learning opportunities to inspire kids to read about trees, learn how they impact our lives, and connect with and protect the trees that surround them and sustain us all.
Take the trek ... and explore, create, read, write, and learn — all about trees.
Here’s what kids will learn about with Tree Trekkers
- Tree ID and Anatomy
Kids learn how to identify which trees live around them, which will help them to better understand their own environment and how to care for the planet.
Activities: Parts of a Tree Scavenger Hunt; Field Guide Fun - Tree Biology
Learning about the life cycle of trees can help kids understand the roles trees play in the ecosystem throughout their lives, the benefits and products trees provide, and how human activities impact a tree's life cycle.
Activities: Act Out and Diagram Tree Life Cycle; Craft a Wood Product - Green Shield: The Forest Ecosystem
Kids explore the important role trees and forests play in providing homes for other plants and animals and in protecting our planet.
Activities: Layers of the Forest Diorama; Carbon Capture Demonstration - Creative Roots: Connecting Trees to Art and History
Kids reflect on what they’ve learned about trees, or the questions they still have about them, to explore art and make their own.
Activities: Poetree: Tree-Inspired Writing; Artis-tree: Celebrating Community Trees with Sculpture - Tree Stewardship
Kids generate ideas for educating others about tree benefits and ways they can protect and save trees.
Activities: Take a Tree Inventory; Talking Up Trees
A program that fits your schedule!
Tree Trekkers is flexible! Use the materials any way you like. Try a topic each day for five days in a row, or once a week to add hands-on learning to your summer and out-of-school time programming. The materials are designed for elementary-school-aged children, but can be adapted for older or younger kids.
Get your free Tree Trekkers toolkit
The toolkit includes 5 topics for exploration through fiction and nonfiction books, hands-on activities, handouts for kids, new vocabulary, and fun writing prompts. There are also tons of “tree-sources” including recommendations for kid-friendly digital media — websites, apps, and video. In the Appendix you'll find a list of tree vocabulary, printable templates for Tree Trekker name tags, journal covers, and certificates, and more.
Complete Toolkit
Download and print the PDF.
By Topic
If you want to choose individual sections of the Tree Trekkers toolkit, just select any of the links below to download and print a PDF.
- Introduction
- Tree ID and Anatomy
- Tree Biology
- Green Shield: The Forest Ecosystem
- Creative Roots: Connecting Trees to Art and History
- Tree Stewardship
- Appendix
Note: Be sure to view and print from Adobe Reader (or an alternative PDF reader), not your web browser.
Getting ready: tips for using the Tree Trekkers toolkit
- Each topic features books and activities related to trees and forests. Review all topics in advance and decide which books and activities you want to use. You’ll find an introduction to the concepts covered and recommended books, as well as a list of questions to guide explorations and activities. Start by gathering books from your library using the booklists in this toolkit.
- Choose both fiction and nonfiction books from the lists provided.
- Read the books you choose before you read them to kids. That way you’ll know what happens and can spot any unfamiliar words or concepts you’ll need to explain. Also, look for places to ask questions while you’re reading aloud to engage listeners.
- Think about what you’d like to do after reading the books. Select from the different activities or do them all, keeping in mind that going outdoors is critical in helping children connect ideas with their everyday environment, as well as providing them with opportunities for observation and reflection. You may also want to include opportunities for your Tree Trekkers to write, journal, and explore related websites, videos, and apps.
- Familiarize yourself with parks, forests, gardens, and arboreta nearby to find trees.
- Get connected to arborists, foresters, and others in your area through your Cooperative Extension agency or state forestry department.
- Check too with your local college or university to see if they have an arboretum or find out what tree or forest related exhibits a local science, natural history, or children’s museum might have.
Learning with kids
- Introduce topics and activate background knowledge by asking kids what they know about trees, what trees they are familiar with, what experiences they have had with trees and forests, etc.
- Start with a book. By reading aloud and asking questions, you’ll get kids thinking about the topic, and what they want to learn. You’ll also increase their understanding and excitement. Read another book and repeat.
- Choose a hands-on activity to let kids explore a theme. By doing an activity, kids get to use the concepts and new words they have learned.
- Look for a local connection. How can you connect the ideas in the books or the activities with kids’ personal experience? Think about walks outdoors, visiting a park or forested area, or checking on animal habitats in local trees or woodlands.
- Keep asking questions and listening carefully to children’s answers.
- Encourage kids to write about what they are learning or are curious about by using one of the writing prompts in this toolkit, and by keeping a Tree Trekkers Journal for observations, drawings, questions, and creative writing activities.
- Provide access to books about the topic for kids to look at on their own.
- Share digital media with kids (websites and videos) that they can use to learn more about the topic and give kids time to try them out. (See “Tree-sources”).
- Step outside or take a field trip to further explore your topic or related theme. Activities for each day will note an opportunity to Branch Out! on an outdoor adventure with special attention to connecting with nature and getting hands-on with trees.
You can choose any of the activities in this toolkit, all of them, or just one or two, but we recommend that you always Start with a Book.
Tree Trekker toolkit creators
Rachael Walker
Rachael has more than 30 years of experience developing partnerships with nonprofit organizations, corporations, and public agencies to benefit children and families. She launches national campaigns, coordinates special events, and develops original content for the National Education Association, Random House Children’s Books, Hachette Book Group, PBS, and WETA’s Learning Media initiatives (Reading Rockets, Colorín Colorado, and AdLit.org). Visit Rachael at Belle of the Book and Book Life.
Eileen Hanning
Eileen has more than 30 years of experience designing reading curriculum for underserved kids and training for their parents and social service providers about reading and child development. Her passion for children’s books and hands-on learning has led her to learn, research, and write about literacy and child development, pedagogy, and the impact of toxic stress on learning. She created her own consulting company where she serves a variety of clients with their curriculum, training, children’s book, and writing needs. She has developed curriculum for Random House, WETA, Reading Is Fundamental, the Girl Scouts of America, and Red Comet Press. Visit Eileen at Read Learn Reach.
Dr. John R. Seiler (expert reviewer)
Dr. Seiler, Professor of Forestry in the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech, has been studying trees for more than 40 years. He is an expert in tree ecophysiology, focusing on the physiological processes that allow trees to manage environmental factors and stressors such as water and pollutants, and has authored more than 115 refereed research articles. In addition to his research activities, Dr. Seiler has taught a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses and also serves as a frequent mentor and advisor for graduate students. Known to students and to the public as “Dr. Dendro” (dendrology is the scientific study of trees), he personally answers hundreds of tree related questions submitted though vTree, the free tree identification app (IOS and Android).
Melina Cienski (expert reviewer)
Melina Cienski is the Urban & Community Forester for Prince William and Stafford counties at the Virginia Department of Forestry. She attended William & Mary, graduating with a degree in biology concentrating in botany. After working in the W&M Herbarium, her environmental career began with Virginia’s State Parks as an interpretive ranger teaching all ages the value of natural resources. She continues to advise the public as a forester, wildland firefighter, forest warden, and Virginia master naturalist.
