The Woodland Trust is encouraging families to celebrate the UK’s incredible trees and woods by throwing a tree party! Become a leaf expert and learn more about trees!
We spent a morning walking around in a big local park looking for a suitable tree to invite. So difficult to choose.
It would be lovely to sit under an ancient tree. A tree that could whisper stories. It would also be lovely to have a tea party and invite a small tree. A tree that symbolises hope for the future. Or a crooked tree . . . Or a tree full with glistening crab apples.
Or a tree stump, the perfect home for many animals during the winter months.
So many options. . .
But who to invite to the tea party?
Friends of course, but a tea party for a tree also needs a special guest. Trees are important to us but trees are also important for many animals. So we decided to invite an endangered animal as part of the September challenge for The Twelve Months of Endangered Animal Song. An animal that could tell his story at the tea party while our guests are munching on oak leaf-shaped shortbread biscuits and feta savoury muffins.
A tree kangaroo!
“On the Ninth Day of September, we saved
Nine Agile Tree Kangaroos”
Many animals are living among the trees and the woods is a perfect playground for people as well.
Why not be a nature detecteive and spy on a tree in your neighbourhood? You might not find a tree kangaroo but perhaps some other interesting animals, maybe an endangered speices in your neighbourhood is dependent upon a tree. Why not invite that animal to tea?
Facts about tree kangaroos.
Fast nimble and graceful!
Tree-kangaroos are fascinating marsupials. Many species of tree kangaroos are incredibly rare, due to hunting and loss of habitat they are decreasing in numbers.
Tree kangaroos belong to the same family of marsupials as kangaroos and wallabies – macropods. This family of marsupials once lived in trees but millions of years ago they climbed down from the trees to live on the ground. But the ancestors of tree kangaroos went back up to live among the foliage.
Tree kangaroos live in the northeastern parts of Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. They are expert on climbing and jumping between trees. Sometimes they are called Boomerang roos! Life among the tree tops placed new demands on the anatomy of the normal kangaroo.
Their diets of soft fruits, flowers and leaves means that they have smaller eats and shorter faces than kangaroos who eat sharp spiky grasses. To haul themselves up into trees than have big powerful forearms.
The tail of tree kangaroos is magnificent. Long and solid tail that is used as a counterbalance for the weight of their upper body. They have strong curved claws that help them to climbing and manipulating food.
Tree kangaroos sleep on a horizontal branch with their tail between their legs and their nose touching their toes.
Featured photo: By Fred Hsu (Wikipedia:User:Fred Hsu on en.wikipedia) – Photo taken and uploaded by user, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7976632
Updated Mind Map, part of the challenge “The Twelve Months of Endangered Animal Song”. You find all the other months on the blog “Sparking Children’s Thinkibility“.
Biomimicry for Young Children 