If I Were a Tree - Writing Prompt

Product description

From the author

Need a fresh and fun Earth Day activity that’ll get your students thinking, and giggling, a little?

If I Were a Tree is a creative writing and drawing prompt that invites students to imagine life from a tree’s point of view. Would they sway in the wind, shelter birds, or complain about squirrels running all over them? This two-part activity encourages imagination, empathy for nature, and a few chuckles along the way.

Students will write a short piece describing what kind of tree they’d be and what their “tree life” would look like. Then, they’ll draw their leafy alter ego! It’s thoughtful, silly, and makes for a great Earth Day classroom display that’s full of personality (and bark jokes).

Ways to Use It:

Earth Day writing center or whole class activity
Morning work or early finisher option
Creative bulletin board display
Paired with tree- or nature-themed read-alouds

Why Teachers Love It:

Encourages creativity while building writing skills
Easy to prep, just print and go
Combines art and writing for a fun, balanced task
Sparks meaningful conversations about nature
Works for a variety of elementary grade levels

Let your students go out on a limb, creatively! 🌳

The PDF includes two activity pages and one terms-of-use page.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Write from an imagined point of view, answering where they would grow and what they would see as a tree
Use the Earth Day prompt as a starting point for describing an imagined tree’s life
Show the same idea as a picture, including both the tree itself and what surrounds it

Teaching tips

The two pages are a matched pair on one idea, so a student who stalls on the writing can start with the drawing and describe what they have drawn
Earth Day is named inside the prompt itself, making it a useful fit for Earth Day, spring or a broader nature unit
The writing page has ruled lines, while the drawing page has open space; provide extra paper for longer written responses

Skills covered

Imaginative first-person writing — students take a tree's point of view and answer where they would grow and what they would see from there.
Descriptive setting — the drawing page asks for what is around the tree as well as the tree itself, so students have to picture a place, not just a subject.
Linking a piece of writing to an occasion — the prompt names Earth Day, so students can connect their imagined tree’s life with an Earth Day discussion.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

In If I Were a Tree - Writing Prompt, how do the two pages work together?

They are the same idea in two forms. One page takes a written response to "where would I grow and what would I see"; the other takes a drawing of the student as a tree with its surroundings. Both share the heading and a Name line, so they can be run as a pair or one at a time.

Is the prompt tied to a particular occasion?

Yes — Earth Day is named in the writing instruction itself, and it can also support a broader tree or nature unit.

No reviews yet

Downloaded this resource? Tell other teachers how it went.

Curriculum

Standards, concepts & topics

Standards

W.1.3

Core concepts

Creative writing prompt
Earth Day
Point of view

Topics

Earth day Earth day drawing Earth day writing Earth day writing prompts Writing prompts Spring writing

Explore more

Categories this resource belongs to

Creative Writing Prompts Descriptive Writing Prompts Personal Narrative Writing Prompts Short Story Writing Prompts Journal Writing Prompts Dialogue Writing Prompts

Explore related searches

More to explore