This is your life, Acer Maple : a learning package /
H. Sharon. Ossenbruggen, Jane. Gamal-Eldin, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station (Radnor, Pa.) · 1990
A Learning PackageIMTRODUCTION This Is your Life, Acer Maple is a multidisciplinary learning package designed for children in elementary grades three to six.The package includes instructions for children, with some help from adults, to create puppets characters in the classroom; the script for the play, "This Is Your Life, Acer Maple"; the script for the "Life, Death and Rebirth of Trees" slide show; recipes for Tree Treats.Also, we suggest several Project Learning Tree activities that are appropriate for the package, especially "Adopt A Tree".We include an activity called "Incredible Trees" and instructions for making classroom tree decorations.A set of 60 slides for the "Life, Death, and Rebirth of Trees" program and a videotape production of "This is Your Life, Acer Maple", which come with a color poster, can also be ordered (see p. 100).We hope that you will find this educational package to be of high quality, clarity and fun for the children.The material is age appropriate and flexible enough to give you freedom to explore it and supplement it as you wish.The directions for making the puppets should be easy for most children to understand with some assistance.You may want to make reading the directions a separate lesson in preparation for constructing the puppets.Pull out vocabulary words from the instructions to be sure the children understand their meaning.Some of the designs can be executed in a class period, but others, such as the tree costume, will take longer because they are fairly complex.The materials chosen for the puppets are purposely inexpensive and easily obtainable.More expensive materials can be used but we did not want cost to be a consideration in mounting the production of the play.Most of the materials are paper products being recycled -a point that should be made to the children.Feel free to experiment with other materials and encourage the children to adapt the designs in any way their creativity suggests.Consider the instructions a basic jumping- off point for their imaginations.The script for the play is not complicated.Two characters have extensive parts but most characters have only two or three lines.These smaller parts should not be too difficult for even a reticent child to master As with the puppet-making instructions, the script could 1