Breadcrumbs

Arbor Day in the classroom

Celebrate Arbor Day in your classroom! It’s easy as 1, 2, tree! Arbor Day is a holiday that promotes planting and protecting trees. Illinois celebrates Arbor Day on the last Friday in April. But really, every day is a great day to celebrate trees!

Communities often celebrate Arbor Day by planting trees with school children. Listed below are activities and lesson plans developed by the Arboretum expert educators to help you celebrate the holiday and teach your students about the importance of trees and conservation. These activities can be great enhancements to your curriculum.

Classroom Activities for Arbor Day:

Plant Trees

Grades pre-K through 2

Know Your Oaks
Acorn Flip Book (a flipbook animation of an acorn sprouting)
Bulletin board ideas - grades PreK-2
Quotations for bulletin boards
Tree Jokes for Bulletin Boards
Treemendous Tree Stories (a CCSS-based writing assignment with rubric)

Grades 3 through 5

The Value of a Tree (find the value of your school trees!)
Acorn Flip Book.pdf (a flipbook animation of an acorn sprouting)
Bulletin board ideas - grades 3-5
Quotations for bulletin boards
Tree Jokes for Bulletin Boards
3rd grade-Treemendous Tree Stories
4th grade-Treemendous Tree Stories
5th grade-Treemendous Tree Stories

Grades 6 through 8

The Value of a Tree (find the value of your school trees!)
Arbor Day Haiku(writing activity)
Find the Age of a Tree - middle school.pdf
Treemendous Tree Stories (a CCSS-based writing assignment with rubric)

Tree Census Lesson Plans (Middle School Grades 6th-8th)

These lesson plans are based on the science of the Chicago-area Regional Tree Census.

(Student data sheets are included in the PDF lesson plan, but have also been seperately included as a word document (.doc), so that you can customize them for your individual school site and classroom needs).