Family Fun: Tree Bark Scavenger Hunt

By Kimberly Thompson Panay

Discover trees, and much more, with this fun-filled Tree Bark Scavenger Hunt from Backpack Explorer: Discovering Trees

What can we learn from a walk in the woods? It turns out a lot more than you might think.

On a recent sunny weekend, I printed out a couple of Tree Bark Scavenger Hunt pages from Backpack Explorer: Discovering Trees (you can download the scavenger hunt page here), packed up my kiddos, and headed out for a walk in the woods.

Download the Backpack Explorer Bark Hunt PDF

With paper and pencil in hand, we made our way down the trail looking for different types of tree bark, taking note of what we saw and felt along the way.

Was the bark rough or smooth? Gray or yellow or brown? We looked for bumpy bark, sticky bark, and scratched-up bark. As we explored, I couldn’t help but think about how trees are a lot like people. They are the same in so many ways, but also different in so many others—a concept that I am keenly aware of, as a mother of identical twins (I am routinely asked “How do you tell them apart?” to which I answer, it’s easy they are so different!).

The girls raced joyfully ahead of me from tree to tree, identifying all the ways the trees were different (bumpy, rough, smooth…), but also the same (branches, leaves, roots…). We celebrated each difference as we checked off the corresponding box on our Tree Bark Scavenger Hunt.

As we continued our walk through the woods, I contemplated this simple notion of being the same but different, and different but the same—and how with small acts, like celebrating the differences in trees, we can build a foundation in our children for celebrating differences in people too.

There is so much to learn from a simple walk in the woods.

Pick up your copy of Backpack Explorer: Discovering Trees wherever books are sold. And we’d love to hear from you! Please share your Backpack Explorer adventures with us @storeypub using #backpackexplorer.

Text and photos © Kimberly Thompson Panay.

Backpack Explorer: Discovering Trees

by Editors of Storey Publishing

Illustrated by Oana Befort

This tree-themed addition to the best-selling Backpack Explorer series encourages junior naturalists to step outside and start learning about the trees they see around them.

Curious kids will stop, look, listen, and touch as they search for types of leaves, count tree rings, gather pinecones, and feel bark. Each page is packed with prompts and activities, including field guides for identifying common trees, simple craft projects such as Make a Nature Mask from colorful leaves, and information about how trees grow and why we need them.

Backpack Explorer: Discovering Trees is packed with fun features, including: