Goals:
To begin to see the sacred in the beauty and mystery of nature.

For parents:
In Sharing Nature With Children, Joseph Cornell wrote: “The unutterable beauty of a blossom…the roar of wind in the trees: At one time or another in our lives, nature touches you…and me…and all of us in some personal, special way. Her immense mystery opens to us a little of its’ stunning purity, reminding us of a life that is greater than the little affairs of humanity. I have never underestimated the value of such moments of touching and entering into nature. We can nourish that deeper awareness until it becomes a true and vital understanding of our place in this world.”

Activities:

1. Read: a story book about trees (from your local library). Here are some to look for:
The Tree in the Ancient Forest by Carol Reed-Jones
The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry
The Season’s of Arnold’s Apple by Gail Gibbons
Once There Was a Tree by Natalia Romanova
A Tree Is Nice by Janice Udry
Mighty Tree by Dick Gackenback
When Dad Cut Down the Chestnut Tree by Pam Ayers
Trees by Harry Behn

2. Bark Rubbing
Choose a nice day to take a walk around the park, your neighborhood, or the woods around your house. Bring along several sheets of white paper and pencils. Make bark rubbings of as many different kinds of trees as you can find. Pick up as many different leaves as you can find on the ground. When you get back inside, see if you can identify what kind of tree the leaves and bark rubbings you took come from. A good tree identification book borrowed from the library is fun to look through. Or use the web if you don’t have ready resource for tree identification.
Here’s one site: http://forestry.about.com/library/tree/bltredex.htm

3. Adopt a tree
Choose a tree in your yard, woods, or neighborhood to adopt as your family tree. In choosing the tree, tell your family that you’ll be watching it for a whole year, drawing pictures and telling stories about the way it changes. Once you’ve chosen your tree, take a few minutes to feel it, smell it, look at it and listen to it. Take a picture of your tree. Make a bark rubbing. Collect leaves from the ground. When you get back inside, identify your tree and learn all you can about it. If you read the story The Tree in the Ancient Forest, consider a comparison between the “ancient tree” and your family tree. Revisit your tree each month. Discuss or record changes with drawings or photos. Collect samples of leaves or fruit or bark that falls from your tree throughout the year for your wonder and beauty table. Make up stories using the tree as the protagonist: what do you think it would be like to be your tree?

4. Wonder and Beauty Table
Set aside a special place in your house to put your bark rubbings and leaves. Encourage your family to add things from nature to this table throughout the year.

5. Be Careful Consumers of Paper Products
Make a list, or a collage of pictures, of all the products in your house that come from paper. Talk about how much you use paper products. Here are some questions to think about:
How often are we using paper plates and cups? Paper towels?
Are we throwing out paper that could be recycled?
Are we intentionally buying recycled paper products?
Is it possible for our family to plant a tree?