Author: Muhaymina Talib Omar (Zanzibar) | Published on 23 January 2026
Read what Muhaymina says about this activity
This activity helps students connect with nature while practicing English. As they explore parts of a tree using their senses, students learn to describe textures, smells, tastes, make predictions, and express observations. The activity allows practice of speaking and listening, while also developing curiosity.
Preparation: You will need to gather some parts of trees (bark, fruit, leaf or seed) before the class, and put them in an opaque bag. You might want to consult the glossary at the bottom of this page to revise some vocabulary which might be useful in this class.
Stage 1: Warm Up (Pre-teach)
Begin with a short discussion about the senses: sight, touch, smell, sound and taste
Mention some things in nature such as familiar animals and plants and invite students to give you sensory information about them.
For example:
Teacher: ‘What do your senses experience around a Desert Rose?”
Students: ‘It looks beautiful.’ ‘It doesn’t smell strong.’ ‘The stem feels smooth and waxy.’ ‘I don’t know what it tastes like; you can’t eat it.’
Turn the exercise around. Describe something in terms of sensory information and ask students to guess what it is. Let students take a turn describing while the other students listen and guess.
For example:
Teacher: ‘It can grow three or four meters tall.’ ‘It’s green at the top. Underneath that the stem is brown.’ ‘You can’t eat it, but elephants can!’
Students: ‘Elephant grass.’
Stage 2: Sensory Discovery
One by one, students are blindfolded (or asked to close their eyes).
Each student reaches into the bag and picks one item (bark, fruit, leaf or seed etc.).
The student then guesses which tree the item might belong to and returns it to the bag.
After they have had some time to guess what tree their item comes from, you can reveal to them what tree each item comes from.
Have each student copy this down onto paper (or into their exercise book):
Trees: ____________ ____________ ____________
Touch:
Taste:
Smell:
Sound:
Uses:
Notes:
Then, they should talk to two other students and get the sensory information about two other trees. Stress to the students that they don’t need to fill every single box.
Stage 3: Home-school link
Ask students to see if they can find out the uses of the tree or any other information by:
- asking elders
- looking in reference books
- searching on the Internet.
In the next class, students can share their findings.
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Notes Adapting the Activity in Resource-Limited Areas: Let students collect items from their surroundings as part of the activity. Encourage oral sharing instead of needing paper or cards. |
Optional Extension Stages
Tree Connection Walk: If it is safe to do so, take your students on a walk around the school and find the actual trees these items came from during a nature walk.
Tell students they will try to find the trees that match the bark, fruit, or seed items they explored earlier.
Art Connection: Create leaf or bark texture rubbings using crayons and paper.