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Friday, October 14, 2011

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.

7 comments:

  1. That's a lot of trees! I have to look for both of these books.

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  2. What a wonderful way to tie science and math together!

    Thank you for linking to Read.Explore.Learn.

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  3. What a great activity! We have a wooded marsh behind our house, so I think there are too many trees for my kids to count!

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  4. Hello there following you on Monday blog hop.. have you added you to my blogroll hope you could also return the favor. Have a great day.
    Here are my url:
    http://www.traveltomydreams.com/
    http://singlemotheronthego.blogspot.com/
    http://freethoughts.info/

    I will be checking back and hop to the other blogs to say Hi as well.
    See yeahh

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  5. I enjoy seeing kids learn from "everyday" things at home. A great activity here.

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  6. What a great activity! And thanks for the free download!! I am starting a Linky Party if you want to link up at http://livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/2011/10/first-ever-linky-party.html

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  7. This is a lovely little activity! Plus the worksheet is fab! Thanks.

    Kerry @sciencesparks

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