creative ideas for children

If you were a tree, what kind would you be?

Why?

What would you feel about humans?

What would you need most?

Empathise with the natural world. Use your intuition to explore nature. 

Play with new perspectives to create your own imaginative adventures, stories and images. For example, this practical site was inspired by ideas and images in this book, and the paintings referred to in this article.

Playing, resting and celebrating beside trees makes them an integral part of our lives, well worth caring for and consequently well worth protecting. Contemplate their beauty and ever-changing variety. Compare contrasting species like flexible, fast growing willows with solid, sturdy, old oaks. Study stripped, wintery sculptural structures to sense related, inner characteristics. It takes all of our senses to appreciate trees’ multiple gifts.

Bark can be rough like an elephant’s skin or silky smooth. Leaves can be shaped like hands, pins or flags. Multicoloured flowers can form cones, bells or sprays. Seeds can be shaped to fly or fall. Subtle sounds are created by wind passing through leaves. Trees have delicate scents, like pine needles after rain. There are sudden fragile effects like spring blossom. Trees provide refreshing summer shade. Deciduous leaves form autumn carpets. Arboreal fruits, nuts and seeds can be delicious for birds, animals, insects and us.