Minnesota Department of Natural Resoures
Getting to Know Trees
Celebrate the beauty of trees with a packet full of activities designed to help kindergarteners get to know about their leafy nature friends. Covering a variety of subjects, scholars go on a nature hike, read Shel Silverstein's The...
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The Giving Tree
Students explore wants and needs. In this ecology and economics lesson, students listen to the story The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and compile a class list of what the boy got from the tree. Students categorize these items as...
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Introduction to Trees and Wood
Students examine samples from various types of trees. In this trees and wood lesson, students review The Giving Tree and complete a KWL chart on trees. Students brainstorm what we get from trees and view wood samples with hand...
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Ornaments for Nursing Home Tree
Students participate in an activity that will allow them to create a gift for a nursing home patient and give their gift to someone who needs a caring hand. In this community service lesson, students learn compassion, and also understand...
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Speaking for the Trees
Students present a play based on The Lorax.In this environmental issues lesson, students read and discuss literature and complete activities pertaining to environmental stewardship.
Rainforest Alliance
Growing a Rainforest in Our Classroom
Give your classroom decor a boost with a rainforest themed mural highlighting what class members learned through their five senses—taste, touch, see, smell, and hear. Scholars create a rainforest filled with trees and animals using their...
Kids Yoga Stories
Valentine's Day - LOVE
Open your heart with a refreshing yoga session designed for Valentine's Day. With visual cues of hearts and other festive decorations, participants begin a series of yoga poses designed to open their heart chakras and to reflect on...
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Talking Trees: Earth Day
Students complete a tree poster activity to learn about Earth Day, stewardship, and the environment. In this environmental stewardship instructional activity, students read The Story of the Tree and discuss stewardship with trees....
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Giving an Outdoor Play
Students reenact a popular book while using their outdoor playground as the stage. In this dramatic interpretation lesson, students follow oral narration to act out events in a story. They use monkey bars as the setting for the story,...
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Tree-mendous Trees
Young scholars become aware of the importance of trees in the natural world. Students are shown 2 filmstrips - Special Things About Trees and Tree Magic. Young scholars plants seeds. They, students predict the growing chart of tree...
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Christmas Around the World
Students 'travel' around the world gathering Christmas traditions. In this Christmas tradition lesson students sing songs, listen to stories and legends, and make crafts associated with different Christmas traditions around the world....
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School Forest Lesson- Looking at Literature
Students compare what they learned though literature to the school forest. In this environment lesson, students visit the forest surrounding their school to listen to literature and identify objects in nature. Students create a...
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Spreading Kindness All Around
Students donate items to organization to demonstrate kindness. In this kindness lesson plan, students read many books and discuss how the characters in each one demonstrate kindness, and then they themselves donate to charities.
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Eager E
Students complete a variety of activities related to the long /e/ sound. As a class they recite a tongue twister, then trace and write the letter E. Students then play a concentration type game, listen to the book "Lee and the Team,"...
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Quick-Change Flip Book
Students create flip books that illustrate the growth and change of a plant or an animal as it goes through its life cycle.
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Smiles Change the World
Students develop speaking and listening skills while evaluating a list. In this consensus lesson, students define consensus and discuss how it might be used at recess. After students understand how consensus works, students review and...
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Holiday Gift Exchange
Students participate in a running or ball dribbling activity, delivering a bean bag across a certain distance to their partner. They deliver as many bean bags to their partner in a two minute time period.
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Composition and Line
Students examine the use of composition and line as they create original drawings. In this composition and line lesson, students recognize the art vocabulary associated with line and composition. Students illustrate the shape...
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Human Beings / Human Rights
Students brainstorm and discuss what it means to be "human." They relate human rights to human needs and discuss what a universal right is and read about Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Needs And Wants
Young scholars make cards illustrating things they think they need and want to be healthy and happy. Groups then sort these cards into "wants" and "needs." The whole class discusses what it means when people's basic needs are not met and...
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Where Do We Go?
Students participate in a physical activity while they utilize terms and vocabulary related to chronology and location.