Montessori-Inspired Tree Activities Using Free Printables

By Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now 

Trees are perfect for a theme in April. With spring, Earth Day, and Arbor Day as common April themes, trees are a natural fit in many ways! 

At Living Montessori Now, I have a list of free tree printables. The free printables include my latest subscriber freebie (a Montessori-inspired tree pack).
Here, I'm sharing ideas for using free tree printables to create Montessori-inspired activities for preschoolers through first graders. 

You'll find many activities for preschoolers through first graders throughout the year along with presentation ideas in my previous posts at PreK + K Sharing. You'll also find ideas for using free printables to create activity trays here: How to Use Printables to Create Montessori-Inspired Activities. 

At Living Montessori Now, I have a post with resource links of Free Printables for Montessori Homeschools and Preschools. 

Disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Montessori Shelves with Tree-Themed Activities

My shelves with tree-themed activities include a free tree culture card designed by The Montessori Company. You’ll also find Montessori-inspired tree numbers, letters, and and more (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

I always have related books available throughout a unit. On my top shelf, I have Tree by Britta Teckentrip, The Tree Book for Kids and Their Grown-ups, Tell Me, Tree, and Trees, Leaves and Bark. These books are all Montessori friendly and great resources for a variety of ages. I have a number of other tree books for the theme that I'll tell about in an upcoming post at Living Montessori Now.

You'll see the handmade My Tree Book (My Tree Book by Elizabeth Hall- Kickin' it in Kindergarten at Teachers Pay Teachers) on the top shelf. We used that for our nature walk to introduce the theme. I'll share more about it in an upcoming post at Living Montessori Now! 

You could mix your tree-themed activities among your shelves according to curriculum area. Or you could have a special tree-themed area something like the one pictured. My shelves this month have a mixture of skill levels. Many of the activities can be adapted for a variety of levels. If you’re a homeschooler, just choose the activities that work for your child’s interests and ability levels. If you don’t have room for all the activities you’d like to do, simply rotate them.

Tree Culture Card with Tree Book by Britta Teckentrup

 

I'm happy to share with you this lovely tree culture card from The Montessori Company. I’m hosting the free printable as an instant download at Living Montessori Now. You can always access the free tree culture card here. 

The description says: “Trees grow tall and strong with leaves that reach for the sunlight. They can grow fruit, flowers and nuts, depending on the type..”

Parts of a Tree Puzzle, Cards, and Booklet-making Materials Free 

Printable: Montessori Parts of a Tree (subscriber freebie) from Trillium Montessori 

This activity uses the Montessori tree puzzle (ours is from the awesome Montessori By Mom Shoots and Sprouts Toolbox), the free printables for parts of a tree matching and booklet making, and a Montessori Services basket. We use a Montessori Services rug for our floor work. 

Reading Parts of a Tree Cards after Matching Tree Puzzle Pieces to Cards

Montessori By Mom has some great extensions for the Montessori tree puzzle. My 4-year-old granddaughter, Zoey, loves the puzzle, so I enjoy finding new variations for her. Renae from Every Star Is Different uses this variation in her "Tree Activities for Tots and Preschoolers." I like that it's a different way to use 3-part cards. 

Zoey laid out each puzzle piece under the matching card and then read the card labels before putting the puzzle back together. 

The Life Cycle of an Oak Tree and the Life Cycle of a Pine Tree  
Free Printable: Oak Tree Life Cycle Sequencing Cards from PreKinders 

Free Printable: The Life Cycle of a Pine Tree from The Teacher Couple at Teachers Pay Teachers 

This activity uses a real acorn and pinecone along with the printables. The child can lay out the life cycle cards in order and use the booklets to check his or her work.

T is for Tree Salt Tray, Object Basket, and Movable Alphabet Work (see shelf photo)

Free Printables: Tree Letters for tree writing tray and object basket (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber) 

For the salt tray, I used the wooden tray from the Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Shapes. You can use whatever tray or container work best for you, though. I added a couple of Safari Ltd. trees from the Trees TOOB for interest. 

For the movable alphabet work, I used a traditional small wooden movable alphabet. I also used Montessori Services language objects tub, top, and tag, and printed number "10" as words for spelling with the movable alphabet. 

For children working on their phonetic sounds, the /t/ objects could be used in an object basket. If you would like help with introducing phonetic sounds, introducing objects with sounds, or beginning phonics in general, check out my DIY Beginning Montessori Phonics with Preschoolers. 

Tree ee Phonogram Card and Booklet Free Printables: “ee” tree font cards (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber) 

Free Printable: "ee" Sound with Letters from MontessoriSoul 

This was so easy to prepare, yet it isolates the "ee" phonogram very well. I have a post and video on how to introduce words starting with phonograms, even with very young children. 

DIY Maple Tree Cards and Counters Free Printables: Maple Tree Numbers (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber) 

Note: I'll change to another tree-themed math activity with free printable (Free Printable: Summer Palm Tree Hundreds Chart Mystery Picture from Mrs. Thompson's Treasures at Teachers Pay Teachers) in a week or so. 

I love making DIY themed cards and counters to introduce odd and even and add interest and variety to cards and counters. I used maple leaf acrylic pendant. You need exactly 55 leaves if you want to do the numbers and counters 1-10.



Again, we use a Montessori Services rug for our floor work. 

Conifer and Deciduous Tree Match Ups  

Free Printable: Deciduous and Conifer Tree Matchups from Every Star Is Different 

This is another super easy activity to prepare. I used a Multicraft tray, printables, and Bambu condiment cup to hold the small cards. You could use just the deciduous or conifrer matchups on the tray. I have both combined on this tray. 

Fingerprint Trees through the Seasons Free Printable: Seasons and Trees from Jessica Steffel at Teachers Pay Teachers

For this activity, I just used the printable on a Multicraft tray along with a washable stamp pad for kids to use to make fingerprint "leaves" for each season of tree. 

More Free Tree Printables 

Go to my post at Living Montessori Now for links to free tree printables from around the blogosphere: Free Tree Printables and Montessori-Inspired Tree Activities. 

And be sure to subscribe to my email list if you'd like to get an exclusive free printable each month (plus two more awesome freebies right away): Free Printables. 

More Tree Activities and Resources 

Montessori-Inspired Arbor Day Activities (my roundup post)

If you'd like to focus on manners with children, please check out my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to Teach Grace and Courtesy! It's written for anyone who'd like to feel comfortable teaching manners to children ages 2-12. I'm also one of the coauthors of the book Learn with Play – 150+ Activities for Year-round Fun & Learning!

Have a happy Earth Day and Arbor Day!

Deb Chitwood is a certified Montessori teacher with a master’s degree in Early Childhood Studies from Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England. Deb taught in Montessori schools in Iowa and Arizona before becoming owner/director/teacher of her own Montessori school in South Dakota. Later, she homeschooled her two children through high school. Deb is now a Montessori writer who lives in San Diego with her husband of 42 years (and lives in the city where her kids, kids-in-law, and 3-year-old granddaughter live). She blogs at Living Montessori Now.

Celebrating Earth Day (and LOTS of TPT freebies)!

Hi! I'm Carolyn from Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together.  I love getting ready for Earth Day with my class.  There are so many fun things to learn and to do to help celebrate our world.  The best part is that you can do little bits here and there, and before you know it, your kids have learned a lot!  This is the time of year that I like to teach about trees, clouds, weather, and making the earth a better place.  Here are some of my favorite things to do...

My Earth Day Prezi  is available at my TPT store for free!  We love using parts of this each day. 

 

 

 

I have put together Earth Day  songs, games, activities, some nice clips from Sid the Science Kid about trees, as well as The Lorax movie by Dr. Seuss.  I hope you enjoy it!

Each year for Earth Day, my class goes outside with another class to "make the world more beautiful" by picking  up trash around our school. 

We have nice trails behind our school, and in the spring, they can use a good cleaning.  Each year I  think, "Oh I hope there is enough garbage for everyone to be able to pick some up."  Unfortunately I never have to worry- there is plenty!  :(

Each child has a glove on one hand and a bag in the other. They know our rules well:  Only touch garbage with the gloved hand. Never pick up glass. Stay with a buddy. Always be able to see  me... And, we always have a wonderful time! 

 

When we go on this adventure, I always like to have another class with us, so that we have two adults.  The kids are so well behaved because they love going outside, feeling grown-up, and realizing that they can make a difference. I still have children come back from years past and tell me that they remember our Earth Day Garbage Pick Up! 

We finish up by putting all of our small bags into huge bags to see what we have collected.
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Another fun outside activity for Earth Day is studying trees.

I love studying trees with my class.  I have a special place in my heart for trees, because growing up, my dad owned a sawmill.  He always knew everything about every tree, and we loved playing in the sawdust pile and visiting the mill.  When my children were small, one of my favorite memories is hiking in the woods with my parents, while my dad taught my kids all about different trees.  

These are some of my favorite books to read for our tree unit:

 

 

 

Here is a great freebie from Teach With Laughter to go with A Tree is Nice .

It is a mini book  where students will print the name of one of the four seasons on each page, write about what they like about a tree during the season, and illustrate the pages. 

 

  

After we read The Giving Tree and talk about it, the children finish this picture and design a tree house in the tree. 

 

 

I just made a new version of this paper, as well as some other tree related papers.  If you would like  copy, just click on the picture below.

 

My FAVORITE tree book  is:

 



 

In case you aren't familiar with the book, it is a wonderful story about an oak tree that falls in the woods and becomes a log. Animals and plants move in until the log decays and a new tree starts to grow.  It is another one of our FAVORITE circle stories!  :)

 

Right after we read and discuss this book, we go outside and look for our own log hotels.  We find lots of them! It is amazing once you start looking for something, how many you find.  We find the insects, holes, fungi- everything the book talked about.  (Except the snake, thank goodness!)

 

 

We also collect some interesting things to take inside to our investigation trays to study with our magnifying glasses.  Last year, we were lucky to find a slice of a small tree trunk, so we could really study the lines and even try to count them.

  

Another similar book that has beautiful illustrations is A Log's Life by Wendy Pfeffer. This is a fun follow-up book to read to review those log hotels. 

 

I have always loved the saying, "The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now."  We talk about what this saying means.   I try to explain to the children that they can't go back and plant a tree twenty years ago, so it is a good size today, but if they plant a tree this year, when they grow up, the tree will be grown up, too. (This is another paper in the little packet that I remade.) Here are some illustrations of this saying.

 

I like the tiny little sprout she drew in the lower left corner to show it starting to grow. 

 

 

I like how he drew the water cycle in this one.   Look at that evaporation going up! 



  

I love the simplicity of this one where she is just dropping her tree seed, but yet she added so much detail in her hat. This one just made me smile. 

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Another favorite activity for spring to help the children enjoy our earth is our Nature Treasure Hunt.  Since I live in Upstate NY, I usually wait to do our Nature Treasure Hunt until May, when the weather is nicer. 

I found some wonderful treasure hunts online to share with you!

This one is from The Bird Feed NYC.

Gwhizteacher shared this one.

I liked this one from No Wooden Spoons.

This one is from Playground Hunt.

This is our Nature Treasure Hunt that I remade.  Now that I have found some of these other ones, I may be using one of them this year!  If you would like a copy of mine, just click on the picture below.

I love the way Crafting-Crazy put the picture hunt right on the front of each bag with handles.  That way the children can put their treasures right into the bag.

One thing I always do is staple a line of stickers onto the Treasure Hunt paper for each child.  That way, the child can mark what was found with a sticker, and not have to keep track of a pencil.  I just staple all of it to a brown lunch bag.

 

I almost forgot the other essential item for this Treasure Hunt:

(After we meet back together and share our treasures, we like to enjoy a freeze pop.)

 

Before we head out, we meet on the rug in the classroom to read over what we will be looking for outside.  We discuss different things we could find for each treasure, and then hope we can find them!

I pair everyone up. We review our rules, and we are off.

 

Just what she hoped for, for "something soft!"

  

 

The were so focused on the goal- nobody even messed with those PUDDLES! YAY!

 

 Heading back to share!

 Treasure!

 

 

A more delicious "treasure!"

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I also love to introduce my children to Miss Rumphius right before  Earth Day.

This is such a thoughtfully written book that lets children begin thinking of different ways they can make the world more beautiful. After we read the story, I have the children retell it. We talk about the three things Alice wanted to do in her life : 1)  travel to far away places, 2) live by the sea, and 3) make the world more beautiful. We discuss why it is so important for each of us to do something to make the world more beautiful.  I found some good discussion questions here for the story.  (The questions are written for 8-11 year olds, but some are perfect for 'turn and talks' and class discussions. 

The children are always anxious to write about how they can each make the world more beautiful. I loved some of the answers!

 

(I will make heart shaped pools.)

 

  (Hunter LOVES the color melon pink- so he is going to paint all the roads! :)

 And finally...  How could that smile not make the world a better place? 

I put all of our pictures together to make a book for each child.  I put their colored picture on top, and then put the black and white copies of the other children's pictures underneath. 

 

 

Next we decorate our planting cups with lupines.  I show them how to make one dot, then two, three, four, and five.

 

Then, we plant our lupine seeds!

This year, we planted our lupine seeds in these little pots so they will be ready to give for Mother's Day.

We also made a poster for our room to help us remember what we need to do!

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I want to share a couple posts that I wrote at my blog with you.  Each one has TONS of ideas and freebies, and would be  great additions to Earth Day lessons!

 

 

"Weather"

Whether the weather be fine,
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!

Author: unknown

 



I wrote a post at my blog ALLLLL about Clouds.  My children loved learning about clouds. This post has LOTS of TPT freebies and ideas to help teach children about clouds. 

Here are some of my favorite books about clouds:

 

 

I wrote another post about The Water Cycle.  

These are my favorite books to teach about the water cycle. 

This post goes right along with clouds. We love, love, love learning about the water cycle.  Maybe because I love, love, love this song:

 

 

I can't wait to have my children each make a marbled earth this year! I think they are so pretty.

 

Teaching with TLC shows how to make them.  They look easy to do- with only shaving cream and blue and green paint. 

  

Here are some FABULOUS Earth Day freebies that I found at TPT and wanted to share with you.  ENJOY!  (And leave some wonderful feedback if you download any of these items!)







Rachelle Smith shared a fabulous Earth Day Mini Unit!

Kaleigh's Klassroom shared this great packet, with some fun True/False questions that make great conversation starters.

Danielle Mastandrea has a great Earth Day Writing Activity and Headband.

Educational Creations has a packet that includes many cute activities in it for Earth Day, including a cute song, earth number cards, and coloring sheets!

I love Phyllis Sprangle's Earth Day Packet!  The children can design a T shirt and do several different writing activities.

Ashley Reed has a fun packet that includes a word search, ABC order activity, and a writing activity.

Angelia Grimes Graeme has an adorable Earth Day Sight Word Game!

Grade School Giggles has a cute Writing Craftivity!

Stephany Dillon has a cute Earth Day Sentence Editing Activity.

These coloring pages from Mrs. Wheeler are a fun activity for Earth Day.

 

The Daily Alphabet has a wonderful emergent reader for Earth Day.

 

Erin Royal Baloo has a color word emergent reader which features different colored recycle bins!



Over the MoonBow has a fun number sequencing game ,using numbers to thirty.

 



Here is some ten frames practice with teen numbers from Amy Swan!

 

Miss Balius has a wonderful Earth Day ELA and Math Packet.

 

These Earth Day Certificates of Recognition from Growing Smart Readers will be a HUGE hit in my class!



 Cassidy Kohler has a cute Earth Day Rhyming Word Families freebie.

 

 

Low Cost Science shared an Earth Day Spot the Difference Activity. My kids will love this!



 

I love this Earth Day Easy Reader from Mrs. Sosa.

 

Little Miss Kindergarten has a sweet Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Poem at her TPT store.



Lindsay Coffin shared a sweet Class Book: My Favorite Thing to Do Outside.

 

I hope you found some fun Earth Day activities to do with your children!  Spring is such a wonderful time to teach the children to love and take care of our earth. 

I would love you to stop by my blog, Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together, and follow my facebook page.  Also, all of my Prezis are free at my TPT Store!  I have  23 different ones.

Thank you for stopping by!