Treewhispers

Debby Davis is a third grade classroom teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. She recently shared the Treewhispers project with her third graders. Here’s her story:

I like to include art projects that work well with the other things we are studying in class—like writing and geography. I decided to introduce the Treewhispers project. After introducing the elements of the project I pulled up the  Treewhispers website and the students looked at the images of the paper forest. The kids really thought they were lovely.

I told the students that they would have the opportunity to record a tree memory on a paper round and that I wanted them to think about their experiences with trees. Their homework was to decide on which tree memory they wanted to share on their round so that when they worked on it in class they would already have an idea in mind.

The students spent about forty-five minutes of class time creating the rounds. I told them they could trace their round on scrap paper if they wanted to try out an idea first. Then I opened the cupboard and gave them access to sharpies, watercolors, markers and colored pencils—photographing their progress as well as each child’s finished product.

Below is their work in  progress. Stay tuned for finished work.

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