Tree Journal Page – Observing & Writing About Trees

If you’re working on a plant unit with your K-2 grade learners, then this free tree journal page is a great activity to get kids outside observing, drawing, and writing about trees! This was a huge hit with my K-1 learners and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too!

*The free printable pages can be found towards the end of this post. Just look for the teal, oval button.

*This post contains affiliate links.

Tree Journal Page

You can use this page any way you’d like, but here are the steps we took:

1. Before heading outdoors, we read A Tree is a Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla. It is a great introduction to trees and vocabulary associated with them. {For older kids, I’d recommend Tell Me, Tree by Gail Gibbons.} You can find more books for seeds, trees, and plants in my plants book list.

2. Each child had a clipboard, pencil, crayons, and a tree journal page. We went outside to an area with lots of trees. {We are surrounded by woods, so that was helpful.}

3. Each child chose his/her own tree and sit a little distance from it. I encouraged them to spread out as much as possible. I told them that their job was to become an expert on the tree they chose because they were going to share their findings with others, like scientists do.

4. Once they had their trees, they child drew a picture of their own tree, just on first glance in the top left space of the page.

5. Then, I set a timer for 5 minutes {you can adjust the time} and asked them to sit in silence, carefully observing the tree. I loaded them with a few questions here: 1- Do you see any animals living or visiting your tree? 2- Do you notice anything strange about your tree, like a dead branch or new leaves?

6. After 5 minutes, they drew more about their tree in the top right area.

7. Then, I asked them to get closer to their tree for a few more minutes to see if they notice anything close up. They could add that information to their drawing.

8. I then asked them to use the information they had gathered to write about their tree on the lines.

9. They shared their findings with each other, taking one another to their trees and reporting on it.

10. After each child reported on their own tree, they invited others to make observations, too. The “expert” on that tree was given a few more minutes to add that information to his/her tree journal page.

 

 

During this plant study, we are also working on an interactive notebook. {All of these printables and more can be found in my Seeds & Plants Unit Study for K-2.}

 

 

I glued this tree journal page to the back of our notebooks.

 

 

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~Becky