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.
Tree Tagging Kits
Promote understanding and value of trees by highlighting the environmental benefits of individual trees. With our Tree Tag Kits, a class or group can calculate the dollar value of the benefits of a particular tree, bringing awareness of how useful trees are in addition to their beauty.
Depending on the grade level and number of students, this hands-on activity will take approximately 2 to 3 hours and is best done over two days. Internet access is required. Parts of this activity are best done indoors while other parts require students to be outdoors.
Each kit contains:
- 11x17 inch weather-resistant tags (made from recycled materials)
- Lesson plans
- Arbor Day celebration ideas
Classroom Activities for Arbor Day:
Tree Census Lesson Plans (Middle School Grades 6th-8th)
These lesson plans are based on the science of the Chicago-area Regional Tree Census.
Tree Census Activities for Middle School
Tree Census Activities-Student Data Sheets
(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).
Tree Identification Resources for Students and Teachers
Plant Trees
Tree Planting and Mulching.pdf
Grades pre-K through 2
- Know Your Oaks
- Acorn Flip Book.pdf (a flipbook animation of an acorn sprouting)
- Bulletin board ideas - grades PreK-2
- Quotations for bulletin boards
- Tree Jokes for Bulletin Boards
Grades 3 through 5
- The Value of a Tree (find the value of your school trees!)
- Acorn Flip Book (a flipbook animation of an acorn sprouting)
- Bulletin board ideas - grades 3-5
- Quotations for bulletin boards
- Tree Jokes for Bulletin Boards
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
Grades 9 through 12
More Resources
Arbor Day Foundation's website provides lots of resources to celebrate Arbor Day including:
- Games and videos for youth and educators
- A Teacher's Guide to Arbor Month from the Minnesota Arbor Month Partnership
