What Trees Do You See?

With the leaves falling, it's the perfect time for a little lesson on trees.

To get some more information on trees big and small, my son and I read two children’s non-fiction books: “Tell Me, Tree” by Gail Gibbons and “I Can Name 50 Trees Today!” by Bonnie Worth. The books taught us lots about trees including information about roots, seeds, and counting rings to tell the age of a tree.

Afterwards, we discussed the difference between 1) bushes and trees and 2) conifers and deciduous trees. I figured it would be easy for my son to tell the difference between the two main types of trees, given the fact that the broadleaf trees are losing their leaves.

When the rain kept us inside, he and I looked out windows on all sides of our house to count how many deciduous and conifer trees we could see in the neighborhood. When we saw two trees out one window and three out the next one, I asked him to add the numbers together.

He charted these numbers by coloring a box for each type of tree we could see on a worksheet that I designed. When it was done, we discovered that we can see 24 deciduous trees and only 16 conifers from the windows of our house.

If you'd like to repeat this activity with your child, download a PDF of the deciduous vs. conifers graphing worksheet here.