From their leafy branches to their tangled roots, trees provide habitats for a diverse variety of plants and animals. Through these experiences, children discover how plants and animals depend on trees by taking a walk, acting out a story, and investigating tree parts.
This is one of 11 activities that can be found in PLT’s Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood guide. To get the activity, attend a training either in person or online and receive PLT’s Early Childhood guide. Below are some supporting resources for this activity.
STUDENT PAGES 
Download the copyright-free student pages that are included with this activity:
Family and Friends Page
(PDF)
Spanish Student Page:
Familia y amigos
(PDF)
RECOMMENDED READING 
Expand your students’ learning and imaginations. Help students meet their reading goals, while building upon concepts learned in this activity, with the following children’s book recommendations:
FAMILY ACTIVITY 
Try a simple variation of this activity to engage children in the outdoors at home. Download this fun and easy-to-do family activity.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 
The following tools and resources may be used to enhance the activity.
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Disneynature Explore
The free Disneynature Explore application for iPads and iPhones combines an augmented reality experience with animal behavior gameplay to encourage young students (grades PreK-3) and their families to get outside and connect with nature. In the app, 3D images of animals appear in the camera’s viewer, providing students with “wild adventures” in their own backyard. For example, students can see their surroundings through a butterfly’s eyes, follow tracks with a bear to find its cub, and crack a nut like a chimpanzee.
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Paper Plate Habitat
Use Florida PLT’s Paper Plate Habitat template as the basis for learners to create their own microhabitats.
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Kea: Learn Birds Through Play
Kea: Learn Birds Through Play is a free mobile app that turns the process of learning to recognize birds into a game. The app has games for beginners and seasoned bird watchers to recognize birds and their calls, and includes an extensive species database. Download the Kea app designed for both iPhone and iPad.
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Mighty Mole and Super Soil – for Grades 1-3
What creatures live in the ground and how do they help make the soil healthy? A book from Dawn Publications, Mighty Mole and Super Soil introduces children to an underground ecosystem that is largely invisible to humans but vital to the health of the planet. In this short story, children follow a mole as she digs tunnels, finds food, escapes predators, and raises a family, all the while aerating and enriching the soil around her. With Mighty Mole and Super Soil, students learn about the importance of soil and the often unseen ecosystems underground. To take student learning even further, try pairing the story with these activities from Dawn Publications based on the book.
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Create a Schoolyard Wildlife Habitat
The Schoolyard Habitat Project Guide from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service gives step-by-step recommendations for creating a wildlife habitat at site, based on on-the-ground experience from successful projects.
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Find Nearby Trails and Parks
AllTrails is a free app that helps users discover the outdoors. Use it to find a hiking path suitable for children, to search for local places to bike or fish, or to plan a national park visit.
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Early Childhood Education
Are you looking for information on the field of childhood education? All Education Schools offers a clearinghouse of resources to explore professional organizations, licensing and credentials, teaching strategies, research, and more – all related to early childhood.
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Schoolyard Habitat Program
This US Fish & Wildlife Service initiative helps teachers and students create wildlife habitats at their schools. Their Schoolyard Habitat Project Guide offers teaching and learning opportunities in many discipline areas and provides opportunities for long-term data collection. Additionally, schools and organizations serving K-12 students may apply for grants of up to $8,000.
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WildLab Bird
A free app that can be downloaded onto any Apple device (try iBird Lite for Android). Use WildLab Bird to learn the basics of bird identification. This application uses audio, photographs, maps, and the process of elimination to help identify over 200 bird species. Sightings can also be entered into a national bird watching database for comparison.
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Forests, by Cathryn Sill
Look to Forests by Cathryn Sill to introduce early learners to forest habitats and the organisms found there. Each page presents one sentence describing a particular forest habitat: boreal forest, tropical rain forest, cloud forest, temperate rain forest, deciduous forest, or tropical dry forest. Each description is accompanied by a realistic illustration. The afterward also contains more information about each habitat, which might be helpful for educators. This book supports Next Generation Science Standard 2-LS4-1 (ISBN: 9781561457342, Grades preK-3).
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Epic! For Educators
Are you looking for new literature connections to support your favorite PLT lessons? This growing Epic! online library offers thousands of picture books, chapter books, early readers, and even nonfiction books (think Common Core Connections!) that elementary teachers can access free of cost. Registered users receive unlimited access to books and customized recommendations for readers’ age levels and interests. Epic! is available for iPads, iPhones, and Android devices.
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Nature Maestro® App Series
With Nature Maestro®, sound recordist and composer Dennis Hysom is your guide. Use this series of applications to explore sounds in nature. You might compose a soundscape for the rainforest, build a nature scene using audio paired with imagery, and discover fun facts about animals all along the way. Immerse yourself in these biomes to compose and share creative soundscapes and then share them with others.
