As Christian parents, we try to instill the love of God and His amazing creation in our children. One of the most beautiful ways to do this is by engaging them with nature. The interesting world of trees can provide tons of opportunities to learn and explore. Tree activities for kids can be as easy as simple observations or as complex as studying the different parts of a leaf, seed, or tree with all the scientific terminology.
Trees are not only necessary for our survival, but they are also a testament to God’s incredible design. This list of tree activities for kids can provide lots of ideas for ways you can explore, learn, and engage with nature and God’s wonderful world.
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Simple Tree Activities for Kids
Finding outdoor activities to encourage your children to love to be outside doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. There are so many ways to encourage fine motor skills, confidence-building, learning, and exploring when you spend time in nature with your children. Tree activities for kids can become a springboard for more complex learning as children grow. Learning about trees can be a great way for young kids to understand how God has created the plants and trees to recycle the carbon dioxide in our air and make it clean for us to breath.
40 Engaging Tree Activities for Kids
These 40 tree activities for kids can be a springboard for lesson plans, earth day, or just some family fun as you tromp together through your backyard, local park, or go hiking in the mountains.
- 1. Tree Identification Adventure
Let’s start with a classic activity: identifying trees. Grab a tree identification guidebook or download an app like Seek, Leafsnap or PlantSnap, and head to your local park or forest. Focus on simple observations like leaf shapes, bark texture, and tree height. You can make it a fun scavenger hunt – “Find a tree with smooth bark” or “Look for a tree with pine cones”. Extend the activity for older children by learning about about the different specifies. Teach them to identify trees by their leaves, bark, fruit, and even their seeds. Encourage them to keep a journal of the trees they discover, including sketches and interesting facts.
- 2. Tree Art and Craft Projects
Art and nature go hand in hand, and trees provide ample inspiration.
Leaf Rubbings: Collect leaves of different shapes and sizes. Place them under a sheet of paper and rub a crayon over the top to reveal the leaf’s texture and shape. Add legs and faces to the leaf prints to create leaf animals.
Bark Art: Hold your paper against the bark of the tree and do a tree rubbing over of the paper and the bark with a crayon or piece of chalk. Add details to create a picture or just collect different types of bark rubbings.
Nature Collage: Gather leaves, twigs, and small branches to create a beautiful collage. Create your picture or story board on the ground or glue small items to a piece of paper to create the picture.
- 3. Bible Verse Tree
Create a Bible Verse Tree in your home. Use a large poster board or an actual small tree branch in a pot. Write simple Bible verses or encouraging words on paper leaves and let them decorate and attach the leaves to the tree. Extend this to your older children by challenging them to find their own favorite Bible verses that mention trees (like Psalm 1:3 or Jeremiah 17:8) and discuss the meaning behind these verses.
- 4. Tree Planting
Planting a tree can be a powerful way to teach kids about stewardship and God’s creation. It’s a long-term project that they can watch grow over the years.
Choose a fast-growing tree species so they can see progress quickly. Let them help with digging, planting, and watering. Involve them in the entire process – from researching the best tree species for your area to understanding the soil requirements and maintenance. You can include the best fruit trees for birds, flowering trees, edible fruit trees such as an apple tree, etc.
- 5. Tree-Themed Story Time
Find books that center around trees and nature. Books like “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein or one of your favorite books can be used to connect the lessons these stories teach about generosity, conservation, and God’s provision. Extend this for older kids and encourage them to look for more detailed stories or even Bible stories that involve trees, like the parable of the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32) or the fig tree (Matthew 21). Encourage them to reflect on the deeper spiritual lessons.
- 6. Tree Journaling
Journaling is a fantastic way to combine creativity in the fresh air, observation about the natural world, and reflections on learning.
Provide them with a simple journal where they can draw pictures of trees, press leaves, and write short descriptions. Older kids can extend their journaling to include observations, specific lab notes with pictures of pine needles, leaves, pine cones, and bark. They can write poems, and even include Bible verses that relate to their experiences in nature.
- 7. Tree Climbing and Safety
Tree climbing is a timeless activity that gets kids active and builds their confidence. Teach your kids to climb safely and look for potential dangers such as broken branches, loose bark on the tree trunk, wasp nests,and sharp objects on the ground below the tree. Start with low branches and help them learn how to climb safely. As they get older and gain some skills and dexterity in physical activity, help them venture higher. Building a tree house or platform part way up in a tree can be a fantastic project to work on together.
- 8. Tree-Themed Science Experiments
Combine fun with learning through science experiments.
Leaf Chromatography: Show kids how leaves change color by extracting pigments. This simple experiment involves rubbing alcohol, coffee filters, and leaves.
Tree Ring Study: Find a tree stump or cut log and count the rings to determine its age. Discuss what each ring means and how it reflects the tree’s life story, including seasons of growth and hardship. Relate this to how our own lives can show growth through different seasons, with God’s guidance.
- 9. Tree Treasure Hunt
Organize a treasure hunt where kids have to find specific types of trees or tree-related items. Your list could include:
- A tree with berries
- A tree with rough bark
- A pinecone
- A leaf larger than your hand
- Red leaves
- Yellow flowers
Add in some Bible trivia for a faith-filled twist. For example, “Find a tree that reminds you of the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden. What does this story teach us?”
- 10. Tree Poetry and Story Writing
Encourage your kids to express their creativity through writing. Help them write short poems or stories about their favorite tree. Older kids can be challenged to write a more detailed story or a series of poems. They can even write a short play or skit about trees in the Bible, like the story of Zacchaeus climbing the sycamore tree to see Jesus (Luke 19:1-10). Share the stories and poems with the rest of the family. If you want to extend a bit further, encourage your child to illustrate the story or poem with magazine pictures, hand-drawn images, or computer generated pictures.
- 11. Tree-Themed Games
Turn tree activities into games and your kids will be engaged in a whole new way. Taking a simple activity and turning it into a game for the whole family makes learning and relationship building so much more fun! Not only are you learning together, but when you play together, you are showing your child that they are important and you want to spend time with them.
Tree Tag: A fun variation of tag where trees are the safe spots.
Nature Bingo: Create bingo cards with different tree-related items and see who can find them all first.
Bible Tree Trivia: Create a quiz game with questions about trees in the Bible. For example, “What type of tree did Noah’s Ark come to rest near?” (Mount Ararat is traditionally associated with certain species like oaks or cedars).
- 12. Tree Shadow Art
On a sunny day, head outside with some chalk and sheets of paper or construction paper. Place the paper on the ground and let the tree’s shadow create a natural outline. Color in the shadow and add details using the tree’s outline as a starting point.
Your artists can add branches, leaves, birds, bugs, and fruit or other details they’d like to include. You can also go on a nature walk and gather tree shadows from several different species of trees.
- 13. Tree Songs and Hymns
Incorporate music into your tree activities.
Sing Songs Together: Find or write songs about trees and God’s creation. For example, sing He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, All Things Bright and Beautiful, The Trees of the Field, and Zacchaeus, while focusing on verses that mention nature.
Create New Lyrics: Encourage older kids to write new lyrics to their favorite hymns, incorporating themes about trees and nature.
- 14. Seasonal Tree Observations
Observe how trees change with the seasons and discuss how this relates to God’s care and plan. Even when the leaves fall off a tree, the tree is not dead. God has created the different parts of a tree to do different things to work together for the overall health of the tree. Make a simple chart to track the changes in a specific tree over the seasons.
Note the color of the leaves, the seed pods, the animals and birds that use use the tree, etc. Encourage them to take photos and create a photo journal. They can write about the changes they observe and relate them to Bible verses about seasons and growth (like Ecclesiastes 3:1).
- 15. Community Service Tree-related Activities
Engage in community service that involves trees such as tree planting projects, park clean-up days, or volunteer at your local national or state park.
- 16. Tree Bark Weaving
Teach your kids the art of weaving using tree bark. Gather pieces of bark that have naturally fallen from trees. Show your children how to weave strips of bark together to create small mats or coasters. Use this time to talk about the intricate designs God has woven into nature and the beautiful picture He is making in your child’s life.
- 17. Tree-Inspired Cooking
Bring the outdoors inside by creating tree-inspired snacks and meals. Make tree-shaped cookies or treats that resemble trees. Make a broccoli forest or ants on a log. You can also bake bread shaped like tree branches or make a meal using ingredients that come from trees like apples, nuts, and spices.
- 18. Tree Sap and Maple Syrup Making
If you live in an area with sugar maples or other sap-producing trees, show your kids how syrup is made. Go to a farm or place where they produce and sell syrup and see if you can get a tour or take a class to how to tap a tree and make your own syrup.
- 19. Tree Canopy Exploration
Take your kids to a place where they can explore the tree canopy, like a forest or a nature reserve with canopy walkways. Look for different birds, insects, and plants that live in the canopy. Discuss the importance of the canopy in the ecosystem and how it supports various forms of life.
- 20. Tree Photography
Encourage your kids to capture the beauty of trees through photography. Provide them with a simple camera or your phone and show them how to take pictures of leaves, bark, and branches. Extend this with your older kids and encourage them to enter their photography into an online photo contest or submit it to the fair.
- 21. Tree-Themed Bible Study
Create a Bible study focusing on the significance of trees in the Bible. Start with simple stories like the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. As your children grow, explore the symbolism of trees in scripture, such as the Tree of Life in Revelation or the Olive Tree in Romans 11.
- 22. Tree-Themed Puzzles and Games
Create or buy tree-themed puzzles and board games. Simple jigsaw puzzles with tree images or more complex puzzles or strategy games that involve trees and nature conservation can be engaging.
- 23. Tree Poetry Reading
Spend an afternoon reading poetry about trees. Choose simple poems that are easy to understand and have a rhythmic flow. For older kids, you can explore more complex poetry and discuss the themes and imagery used by the poets.
- 24. Tree-Based Science Fair Projects
Encourage your kids to choose a tree-related topic for a science fair project such as how different types of soil affect tree growth, study the impact of light on leaf coloration, or explore the biodiversity within a single tree.
- 25. Tree Ring Art
Create art using tree rings. Cut slices of tree trunks and let them paint the rings or create detailed scenes. They can even use the rings to tell a story about the tree’s life. This can also be a great way to extend the learning of tree life cycles and how a tree grows.
- 26. Tree-Inspired Storytelling
Sit under a tree and tell stories in the great outdoors. Tell simple, imaginative stories where trees are a main part of the story. You can tell a never-ending story where one person starts with one or two lines and then each person adds a line or two to the story.
- 27. Tree Scavenger Hunt with a Bible Connection
Enhance the traditional tree scavenger hunt with a Bible connection. Include items like “a leaf that reminds you of God’s creation” or “a piece of bark that feels like the rough times in life.” Pair each found item with a related Bible verse.
- 28. Tree Bark Fossil Imprints
Create fossil imprints using tree bark with clay or plaster of Paris. Press pieces of tree bark into the clay or plaster to create imprints. Once dried, paint them to highlight the textures. This activity can include discussions about how God’s creation leaves a mark, just like our example should leave an impression on others.
- 29. Tree-Based Music
Make music using trees and tree-related materials. Create simple instruments like a tree branch xylophone or drums. Give your kids time for nature exploration as they look for creative ways to make music. Challenge them to create a full song or composition using natural sounds from trees. To add a little competition, each person can tap or play a tune and the rest can try to guess the song.
- 30. Tree Themed Scrapbooking
Create a scrapbook dedicated to trees. Your scrapbook can include leaf rubbings, bark textures, pictures of your child climbing in a tree, and simple notes. Older kids can add photos, detailed observations, and personal reflections about their interactions with trees.
- 31. Tree-Themed Community Outreach
Get involved in community outreach programs focused on trees such as tree planting events or educational workshops about trees.
- 32. Create a Tree Calendar
Make a tree-themed calendar with your kids. Take pictures of different trees each month and create a calendar featuring these photos. Add a Bible verse for each month that relates to nature and God’s creation. These could make great gifts for grandparents!
- 33. Tree Sculpture Building
Use natural materials to build tree sculptures. Create a simple structure using sticks and leaves. You can make this on a large scale or as small as a miniature garden with tiny fences, trees, bushes, etc.
- 34. Tree-Themed Educational Videos
Watch some educational videos about trees. Documentaries that explore tree biology, ecosystems, and conservation efforts can lead to lots of fun conversation and awareness of the trees around you.
- 35. Tree Mapping and Tree Life Cycle
Create a map of your local area. Walk around your neighborhood or a local park, identifying and marking different tree species on a map. Use this to connect different subject areas such as science and geography. Extend your map to include the different stages of a tree life cycle. Find a seed pod, baby tree, full-grown tree, etc and draw or create a map of the life cycle.
- 36. Tree Measurement Activity
Teach your kids how to measure trees. Use a measuring tape to measure the circumference of tree trunks, the height of trees, and the spread of branches. Talk about how these measurements can tell us about the age and health of trees.
- 37. Pine Cone Bird Feeder
Collect some large pine cones and slather them with peanut butter and then roll them in bird seed. Tie a string to the top and hang them in a tree to feed the birds.
- 38. Create a Family Tree
Look at some family trees and then help your child understand how to create your own family tree. Include pictures (drawn or photographs) of each person and turn it into a keepsake.
- 39. Tree Shadow Study
Study the shadows cast by trees at different times of the day. Observe how the shadows change in length and direction throughout the day. Talk about how the sun’s movement affects shadows and relate this to the concept of God’s light guiding us. A fun Bible story to connect is the day the sun stood still (Joshua 10) or when the sun moved backwards (Isaiah 38).
- 40. Tree-Based Obstacle Course
Create an obstacle course using trees and branches as natural resources. Include challenges such as weaving between trees, climbing over low branches, ducking under a branch, balancing on a log, or hopping between pine cones can be a great activity that takes just a few minutes to create.
Using Tree Activities for Kids
Using different ways to create fun activities to engage your younger kids in learning and expand that learning with your older kids as they learn about different types of trees and the nature around you can create an ongoing learning environment for your children. Providing educational activities that can turn into a science lesson that expands to learning more about God through nature.
Use this activity guide to jump start your own list of activities to engage your kids with learning about trees based on your child’s interest and the amazing world God has created. Children love to learn and explore with hands on opportunities. While they are busy exploring, you have the opportunity to talk to them help them make discoveries and connections between nature and life.