Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson XXXIII · Unit 7: Plants
33. Forest trees
Goal: Your child names some trees near home, tells shade trees from forest trees, and knows some uses of different woods.
You'll need
- A walk to a street, park or woods with several kinds of trees
- Paper and crayons for bark and leaf rubbings
- A few wooden things from around the house
- Optional: a tree identification book or app
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
Questions about shade trees along the streets and in parks, trees of the woods, dark, light, hard and soft woods, which woods are used for furniture, wagons, building lumber and ships, Arbor Day, and a poem, "What do we plant when we plant the tree?" The great trees of California are described, and the child is asked to learn the names of trees seen on walks.
The lesson, step by step
Trees on our street
Go for a walk.
Trees are very useful to us, and we ought to be very grateful for them.
Ask: Which trees grow along our street and in the park? Why are they so nice on a hot day? What do we call them? (shade trees)
Learn some names
Pick two or three trees and learn their names together (use a tree book or app if you need to). Do a leaf rubbing and a bark rubbing of each.
Ask: Which trees get their leaves first in spring? Which are brightest in autumn?
Wood at home
Back home, look at wooden things: a table, chair, floor, door, pencil. Ask: Is this wood dark or light? Hard or soft?
Ask the book's questions: Which wood would you use to make a wagon? Why? Which trees give lumber for building houses?
A forest
Ask: What do we call many trees growing together? (a forest or woods)
The tree poem
Read the poem.
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the house when we plant the tree.
Ask: What else does the poem say we plant?
Giant trees
Read about the great trees of California.
SayThe book says some are nearly 400 feet high, twice as tall as a very tall steeple.
If you can, look up a photo of giant sequoias or redwoods, with people standing beside them.
Arbor Day
Ask: What is Arbor Day? Why should we plant trees? If you can, plant a tree or a tree seed (an acorn in a pot).
Afterwards
Learn one new tree each week this season, as the book says: "Learn to know the trees so that you can call them by their proper names." Draw and paint them.
Answers to the book's problems
Trees along streets and in parks are shade trees. Many trees together make a forest or woods. Examples (they vary by region): dark wood, walnut or cherry; light wood, maple, birch or pine; hard wood, oak, hickory or maple; soft wood, pine. Oak, walnut, cherry and maple are prized for furniture. Hickory and oak are used for wagons because they are hard and tough. Pine, spruce and fir give lumber for building. Oak (especially live oak) was used for building ships. Arbor Day is a day set aside for planting trees; it was first held in Nebraska in 1872. We plant trees for shade, wood, fruit and beauty, and to replace those that are cut down. The poem says when we plant a tree we plant a house (rafters, shingles, floors, doors), a ship, a flagstaff and shade.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.