Education doesn't begin and end at school. In fact, the first and best teachers of children are their parents! Take advantage of your second grader's natural curiosity and eagerness to explore by suggesting the enrichment activities listed below. These environmental education activities are divided into time periods with a theme and an essential question for each section to guide you and your child in your exploration of the natural world.
September/October
Theme: Harvesting
How do people gather and preserve food?
- Find a tree identification book at the library and help your child use it to identify the fruit and nut trees in your neighborhood.
- Point out several fruit and nut trees in your neighborhood to your child. Have him or her choose one kind of tree and describe it as completely as possible.
- Have your child choose a kind of fruit or nut tree and draw a picture of it from memory. Then take him or her outside to closely observe that kind of tree. Finally, have him/her come back inside and draw the tree again as accurately as possible.
- Take your child for a walk through your neighborhood. Have him or her sketch structures, streets and sidewalks, and flowerbeds and trees along the way. Then have him/her use the sketch to draw a map of your neighborhood, labeling the kinds of trees.
- Take your child to a Farmer's Market and point out all the different kinds of produce available. Have him or her color a picture of the market, labeling the kinds of fruit and vegetables.
November/December
Theme: Change
How do plants change in response to changes in weather?
- Take your child for a walk to look for signs of fall, especially any changes in plants. Have him or her report findings to a third party.
- Help your child collect a number of leaves, then sort and compare them according to their physical characteristics. Have him or her choose one leaf to take outside and locate the kind of tree it came from.
- Have your child observe buds on a tree in your neighborhood after all its leaves are gone. Snap a twig from the tree, date and label it, and put it in a safe place. Every month, snap another twig from the same tree, observing and recording the changes.
- Have your child design a game that shows how trees compete for sunlight, water and minerals.
January/February/March
Theme: Restoration
Why is soil important?
- Give your child a variety of materials to create a tree costume, including a trunk, bark, branches, roots and leaves (or blossoms). Then have him or her write a song about trees to perform for you and other family members.
- Have your child write out the different parts of a tree (see above) on large sheets of paper. Hold the words up randomly and have him or her act out the function of that tree part.
- Have your child collect soil samples from different places in the neighborhood, label them, and observe differences and similarities.
- Help your child create a mini-subfloor and forest floor habitat in a 2-liter bottle.
April/May/June
Theme: Diversity
Are forests more than trees?
- Have your child describe the forest from the point of view of a forest animal and draw a picture to illustrate.
- Have your child take an inventory of plants and animals that live in and around a chosen tree in your neighborhood.
- Have your child examine a fallen log for the plant and animal life that lives there, sketching and describing each. Then take him or her to the library to find resources to help identify each organism.
- Have your child closely observe a colony of sow bugs, ants or other insects to determine what they prefer to eat.
- Find several books from the library about rain forests. Have your child draw a cross-section of a rain forest. Then have him or her draw or cut out pictures of different rain forest animals and place them on the diagram in the appropriate layer.
Last Modified: Tuesday, January 08, 2008