Trees

Life skills

Grade 2

Trees

Module 5

Trees

Trees

• Trees form a very important part of our environment. We even have a day to remember their special role, Arbour Day. Most organisations try to plant a tree or a number of trees to mark this occasion. Why do we have a special day to remember trees?
• Trees have many uses for mankind. Look at the diagram and discuss the many ways in which we use trees.

• Not only are they useful but they also improve the beauty of our world.

From wood to paper

• The products made from trees are usually made from wood. In your groups read about the process of how we use wood to make the very paper you write on.

1. When the trees have grown to a certain size,

they are marked to make sure that they are not all sawed off at the same time.

2. The trees are cut and taken to the sawmill.

3. Here they are stripped of their bark and cut into planks or smaller sizes.

4. The wood for paper is chopped and mashed until it is pulp.

5. It is dried and rolled into huge rolls of paper.

• Hundreds of trees go into the making of paper. Every time a tree is cut to be made into paper, another tree must be planted, but it will take seven years for that tree to grow big enough. Trees are a precious resource and we must look after them.
• Now answer these questions in your groups.

1. Why should we look after trees?

How can we look after trees?

• Make drawings of what you can do to take care of your trees.

• We have said that we get wood from trees, but wood is not only used to make paper. Wood has many uses. In the past it was essential just to keep warm, many houses were built of wood and most furniture was made of it Nowadays we use other materials to make furniture.
• What materials are these? Find out and list them.
• Do you think they are better?

Investigate a chair

• What do we want when we sit in a chair?
• It must be comfortable.
• It must not break.
• What else is important?

Try out the chairs in your home.

• What are they made of?
• What are their good points?
• What are their weak points?
• Fill in your findings in the table below.

Assessment

Memorandum

Observe the trees all around us. Look at the different size and shapes, look at the texture of the bark and leaves. Allow the children to discover and create patterns with the leaves or textures they observe in the trees (A&C 1.8; 1.9).

Enact the tree growing from seed. Encourage the children to move slowly to show how the tree pushes out each tiny shoot or root. Then try to emulate movements in the wind.

Contrast the movements made by nature with a noisy timber factory, as the children become the machinery that will chop and cut and saw the wood as they

will read on the page about a timber factory (‘From wood to paper’).

(expressing and communicating: a&C 4.4).

First explain to the learners what the difference between a plantation and a forest is, and then let them draw a picture of a plantation on the cover page of the module.

Valentine’s Day is a good example of this. The business world just cashed in on people’s unlimited wants. Naturally these will continue to change. End the questionnaire by asking what they think their children might want (EMS LO 1.