Tree Unit Study Ideas

September 9, 2025 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

I feel like fall is the perfect time to learn about tress because they’re doing some really dramatic things this time of year (and going on a leaf hunt is always a good idea once the weather starts to cool down a little bit). But you can do different tree learning activities throughout the year regardless of the season. Let’s take a look at some great tree unit study ideas.

You can start out by learning the parts of the tree with this printable from NurtureStore. Use the drawing of a tree to label the parts, then look at a real tree and see what parts you can identify or gather for a nature table in the classroom.

Homeschool Helper Online has free printable journaling pages with trees through the year so kids can color in the leaves a little buds in spring, full green leaves in summer and changing colors in the fall. There are both deciduous and evergreen trees included so you can talk about the differences (free download with email signup).

Homeschool Share has a great printable unit study and lapbook about trees and the animals that live in them. This one is also free with email signup and includes tree trivia, vocabulary, the life cycle of an oak, parts of a trunk and much more.

Another great free download comes from Homeschool Giveaways, which has a leaf and tree unit study. This one gets into things like seeds and how they are dispersed, parts of a plant, photosynthesis, parts of a leaf, flower and fruit, layers of soil, places where different plants live and more. So it’s not specifically about trees entirely but still a great resource for talking about plants of all kinds. They also have a leaf vocabulary workbook if you really want to get into it.

Superstar Worksheets has some nice leaf printable worksheets including parts of a leaf and leaf coloring pages. And Happy Homeschool Adventures has ideas for a Montessori inspired tree unit study, as well as printable leaf three-part cards.

If you’re able to pay for resources, I like this tree unit study from Early Childhood Adventures at Teachers Pay Teachers, and this lovely unit study on deciduous trees from Fun Mom Printables on Etsy. There’s also this great Charlotte Mason inspired printables set from RikiTikiArt.

And of course you’ll want to identify the trees where you live, and maybe even find your state tree if you live in the United States. And check out more leaf learning activities, as well as activities around leaves that don’t use real leaves. And don’t forget some leaf crafts, too!

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Resources for Learning about Squirrels

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

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