Activity
6
Evergreens
in Winter
Overview
Evergreen trees offer a sensory overload! Through
these experiences, children will touch, smell, see,
hear, and taste the season of winter. Many of these
experiences can be used year-round in areas with or
without snow.
Objectives
Provide opportunities and materials for children to:
Observe seasonal changes in nature.
Compare the cones, leaves, and twigs of different
evergreen trees.
Practice fine motor skills while making treats for
wildlife in winter.
Write an imaginative story about what will happen
when the animals find their treats.
Express feelings about winter through music,
movement, and art.
Play outside in a natural setting.
Assessing the Experiences
As you observe the children during the day, note the
following:
New vocabulary that the children are using in their
conversations with you and one another. Listen to how
they describe elements of winter.
Questions that the children are asking. Do the questions
show an increased awareness of the variety of trees?
Indications that the children’s experiences have
helped them form new ideas or refine old ideas.
Are they drawing new conclusions or asking new
questions that are based on their observations? What
is sparking their curiosity?
Word Bank
cone, deciduous, evergreen, needle, season, silhouette,
spring, whorl, winter
Related PLT PreK-8 Environmental
Education Activities
Looking at Leaves, Name That Tree
56
Background for
Educators
In this experience, children will be
investigating evergreens. While there are
several kinds of trees that stay green all
winter in southern and western states (e.g.,
live oak and holly), these experiences will
focus on conifers (e.g., pines, spruces, firs,
and hemlocks) that can be found across
the country and stay green all year round.
Conifers are trees that bear their seeds
in cones and have needle-like or scalelike
leaves.
Most conifers are evergreens. There is one
exception in North America—the tamarack
or larch. The needles of the larch turn
yellow in the fall and drop from the tree.
Other conifers do lose needles, but since
the needles don’t drop all at one time, the
trees remain green year round.
Conifers are amazing plants with many
world records. All of these record-holders
can be found in the United States:
The tallest living thing: Coast Redwood
The largest living thing: Giant Sequoia
The oldest living thing: Great Basin
Bristlecone Pine
Conifers growing in northern states have
special adaptations that help them survive
Project Learning Tree • Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood
© American Forest Foundation
Copyright 2015, American Forest Foundation. Permission to reprint and distribute this activity from Project Learning Tree's "Environmental
Experiences for Early Childhood" has been granted to the Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education. Educators can receive the complete
guide by attending a Project Learning Tree workshop. Contact Nicole Filizetti, Wisconsin State PLT Coordinator, at 715-346-2014 or
[email protected]. For more information about Project Learning Tree, please visit www.plt.org.
the cold temperatures and heavy snows of
winter. These characteristics include:
Triangular shapes that shed snow.
Narrow, wax-covered leaves that help trees
retain moisture.
Sap that contains a chemical similar to
“antifreeze” that keeps trees from freezing.
Enjoy exploring the greens of winter!
Introducing the Theme
Materials
twigs and leaves from evergreen and deciduous trees
Display a variety of twigs from evergreen trees and deciduous trees. Smell them. Scratch
the twigs and smell again. Feel the leaves of the evergreens. Ask: Which twigs do you like
best? How are the leaves the same? How are they different? How are the leaves of evergreen
trees different from the leaves of trees that lose their leaves in fall?
Featured Experience—
Winter Treats
Night Tree by Eve Bunting; plastic
needles; yarn or string; foods (e.g.,
oat cereal, unsalted pretzels, and whole-grain bread)
Note: You can use leftover bread from your evergreen
tree sandwiches (see Enjoying Snacks Together) to make
garlands. Also, salt dehydrates animals at a time when
freshwater is difficult to find. Avoid “serving” any foods
with added salt.
Materials
Read Night Tree by Eve Bunting. Ask: Why do
you think the people in this story put out food
for the animals? Who do you think will come to
eat the treats? Have you ever put out food for
animals at your house? If we made treats for the
animals, where could we put them?
Organize an area with
the supplies needed, and
invite the children to make
garlands for the animals
during choice time. Using
plastic yarn needles and
string or yarn, the children can thread
unsalted pretzels, oat cereal, and cutouts from
whole-grain bread into a garland. Be sure to
knot a pretzel rod or peanut on the end of the
yarn to keep the rest of the food from falling
off as the children work.
Then, head outside! Allow children to decide
where to place their garlands (e.g., in an
evergreen tree, on a fence, or on the ground).
Visit the garlands as often as possible. Ask:
Who do you think ate the food? Did they
leave any clues? Why do you think the
treats on the _____ disappeared before
the treats on the ____?
Be aware of any food
allergies, dietary needs,
or choking hazards for the children in
your class.
Safety
Activity 6: Evergreens in Winter
© American Forest Foundation
57
Activity
6
Using plastic knives, show
children how to cut bread
into triangles; how to spread
with cream cheese; and how
to decorate with nuts, seeds,
or dried fruits. Serve with
hot drinks made from trees
(e.g., cocoa or tea, such
as wintergreen, birch, or
safrole-free sassafras).
Group Experiences
Learning through
Music and Movement
Make tree silhouettes
bright light (flashlight, projector
light); blank wall or large sheet;
sample tree silhouettes (available at www.plt.org).
Materials
After spending time outdoors observing
different tree shapes, shine a bright light on
a blank wall or large sheet. Encourage the
children to take turns creating tree silhouettes
by using their bodies. Ask: How can you make
your body look like a tree that loses its leaves?
How can you make your body look like an oak
tree? A spruce tree?
Reading and Writing
Create and share winter stories
After the children make treats for the animals
(see Featured Experience), share the book
Stranger in the Woods: A Photographic Fantasy
by Carl Sams and Jean Stoick. Invite them to
think about which animals might eat their treats.
Encourage them to write or dictate a short story
about what will happen when the animals find
their treats. Assemble the individual pages into a
class book, or post them on the bulletin board.
Enjoying Snacks Together
Eat evergreen tree sandwiches
plastic knives and plates; whole-grain
bread; green-tinted cream cheese,
softened; cranberries, dates, figs, nuts, raisins,
sunflower seeds, or other dried fruits; hot drinks
Recipe
58
Be aware of any food allergies,
dietary needs, or choking hazards for
the children in your class.
Safety
Taking Neighborhood Walks
On your winter walks, do the following:
Look for knobs and weird branches on
deciduous trees. With the leaves gone, the
shapes are easier to see.
Search for animal homes in deciduous trees.
Nests and holes should be more visible now.
Search on the ground for tracks and other
signs of animals.
Stop and listen to the sounds of winter (e.g.,
wind or snow under feet). Ask: How does our
walk sound, smell, or look different from the last
time we walked? What is the same?
Find places that are out of the wind (e.g., close
to a building, or next to or under a tree or
hedge). Ask: If you were an animal outside in
winter, where would you stay?
Search on the ground for cones. Look up high
in the trees for cones still on the trees. Some
trees hold their cones for more than a year.
Plan to visit the trees again in the spring to look
for new growth on the tips of the branches.
Lie down under evergreens, and look up
through the branches. Talk about the patterns
you see. Experience the way evergreens
provide shelter from wind, rain, and snow.
Project Learning Tree • Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood
© American Forest Foundation
Copyright 2015, American Forest Foundation. Permission to reprint and distribute this activity from Project Learning Tree's "Environmental
Experiences for Early Childhood" has been granted to the Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education. Educators can receive the complete
guide by attending a Project Learning Tree workshop. Contact Nicole Filizetti, Wisconsin State PLT Coordinator, at 715-346-2014 or
[email protected]. For more information about Project Learning Tree, please visit www.plt.org.
Look for the whorls of
branches on conifers,
such as pine, spruce,
and fir. Each year,
the tree adds a new
whorl of branches.
You can estimate the
age of the tree by
counting the whorls. Add
two or three years to represent
the first few years of growth before the tree
started making whorls.
For safety information and outdoor
teaching tips, see Playing It Safe Outdoors
and Taking Neighborhood Walks in the appendix.
Safety
Learning Centers
Art
Paint with evergreen
paintbrushes
evergreen
needles;
tape; paints; paper
Materials
Use child-size shovels to clear sidewalks or
play areas. Haul away snow using sleds.
Spread evergreen boughs cut from discarded
Christmas trees over garden areas and
flowerbeds after the ground freezes to protect
the plants from extreme temperature changes.
Use diluted food coloring in spray bottles to
color the snow.
On a sunny day, stand like trees and trace
silhouettes on the sidewalk with chalk.
Look for signs of animals (e.g., tracks,
droppings, and feathers or fur).
Discovery Table
Feel prickly and tickly branches
Encourage the children to bring in small sprigs
from evergreens in their yards or from
their Christmas trees. Label boxes
“prickly” and “tickly” so the children
can sort the branches. Provide
magnifying lenses so they can
explore the different shapes of
leaves. Challenge the children to
find as many different kinds of
evergreens as possible.
Invite the children to dip small
spruce branches into paint and to
swirl them on large pieces of paper.
Gather several pine needles into a bundle,
and wrap them with tape to form a brush for
large paintings. Or use one pine needle for
delicate paintings. Press cedar sprigs onto
paint pads, and make prints on paper.
Outdoor Play
Make evergreen angels instead of snow angels.
Make a snow shelter, or build a shelter out of
discarded Christmas tree boughs.
Activity 6: Evergreens in Winter
© American Forest Foundation
59
Activity
6
Math and Manipulatives
Sort cones
Using cones collected on walks, brought
from home, or purchased, invite the children
to sort the cones by size, shape, weight, or
kind. Make graphs to show how many of
each shape or kind the children have found.
Younger children can simply sort them into
boxes labeled “big” and “little.”
Woodworking
High in the Pine Tree
High in the pine tree,
The little morning dove
Made a little nursery
To please her little love.
“Coo,” said the morning dove,
“Coo,” said she
In the long, shady branches
Of the dark pine tree.
Make wood blocks
Saw pine or spruce lumber into natural
blocks for the woodworking area. Sand
smooth. (See Woodworking in Activity 3,
“Get in Touch with Trees.”)
Dramatic Play
Pretend to be animals
Set up an artificial evergreen
tree in a play area.
Provide animal puppets
for the children to
pretend to be
animals staying
warm in and under
the evergreen
tree. Provide a
variety of food
(e.g., pretend corn,
fruits, and nuts) so
they can search for
something to eat.
The following poem
is an example of an
animal scene children can
portray.
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Reading Connections
Bancroft, Henrietta, and Richard G. Van Gelder.
Animals in Winter.
St. Louis, MO: San Val, 1999. This book explains
ways that animals have of coping with winter
and inclement weather. Ages 2–6. ISBN:
0613029542.
Blomgren, Jennifer. Where Would I Be
in an Evergreen Tree?
Seattle, WA: Sasquatch Books,
2004. This book presents
pictures and information
about the many animals and
plants that find their homes
in a northern coniferous
forest. Ages 4–8. ISBN:
1570614148.
Bunting, Eve. Night Tree.
St. Louis, MO: San Val,
1999. On a cold Christmas
Eve, a family drives out to
Luke’s Forest, where they greet
their favorite tree like an old
friend and decorate it with edible
ornaments for the animals of the woods.
Ages 2–5. ISBN: 078575315X.
Project Learning Tree • Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood
© American Forest Foundation
Copyright 2015, American Forest Foundation. Permission to reprint and distribute this activity from Project Learning Tree's "Environmental
Experiences for Early Childhood" has been granted to the Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education. Educators can receive the complete
guide by attending a Project Learning Tree workshop. Contact Nicole Filizetti, Wisconsin State PLT Coordinator, at 715-346-2014 or
[email protected]. For more information about Project Learning Tree, please visit www.plt.org.
Florian, Douglas. Winter Eyes.
New York: Greenwillow Books, 1999. Poet
Douglas Florian melts everyone’s doubts
about Mother Nature’s chilly grip with 28
winter-inspired poems accompanied by crisp
watercolor illustrations. Ages 5 and up. ISBN:
0688164587.
across a creature he’s never seen before—and
how this creature helps the mouse avoid danger.
Ages 4–8. ISBN: 0671704451.
Gerber, Carole. Winter Trees.
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2008. A boy
and his dog walk through a winter woods and
note the different tree shapes. Ages 2–5. ISBN:
1580891691.
Sams, Carl R., and Jean Stoick. Stranger in the
Woods: A Photographic Fantasy.
Milford, MI: C. R. Sams II Photography, 2000.
Who is this stranger? Why did he arrive after
a winter storm and what surprises does he
bring? A delightful book of animal reactions
to a snowman who suddenly appeared in the
woods after a winter storm. Ages 4-8. ISBN:
0967174805.
Miller, Edna. Mousekin’s Frosty Friend.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. In the
middle of winter, it isn’t easy for a white-footed
mouse to find food, especially while trying to
dodge predators that are just as hungry. Find
out what a careful mouse does when he comes
Yolen, Jane. Owl Moon.
New York: Penguin Group (USA), 1987. A girl
and her father go owling on a moonlit winter
night near the farm where they live. Learn
about what they see and hear hidden in inkblue shadows. Ages 3–8. ISBN: 0399214577.
Family and Friends
We are exploring evergreen trees at school.
Here are some activities you and your child can
do together:
Search for evergreen-scented items in your
home (e.g., air fresheners, car fresheners,
cleaners, or deodorants). Talk about why you
like or don’t like the smell.
Take a walk through an evergreen forest. Look
for ways that evergreens provide protection
from wind, rain, and snow.
Enjoy a fun wintertime activity together.
Bundle up and enjoy an early evening stroll
around your yard, neighborhood, or nearby
park. Look for ways that animals survive in
winter.
Prepare some hot tea or cocoa.
Activity 6: Evergreens in Winter
© American Forest Foundation
Help build your child’s vocabulary by using some
of these new words in your conversations:
We are reading the following books in class.
Check them out from your library and invite your
child to share them with you.
Download and print Family and
Friends pages from PLT’s website
and give to parents and caregivers.
www.plt.org
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