Plan Ahead for Arbor Day

Arbor Day will be celebrated on the last Friday of the month, April 24.  You can read more about it if you visit the Arbor Day page on the Arbor Day Foundation website.  Also, visit the event page and join it on Bloggers Unite.

Celebrate Arbor Day on April 24!

About Arbor Day

Arbor Day is a nationally recognized holiday for the planting of trees.  It dates back to April 10, 1872.  It began in Nebraska, started by Julius Sterling Morton.  He served as Secretary of Agriculture for President Grover Cleveland, and on Nebraska’s state board of agriculture.  Morton believed that planting trees would aid Nebraska’s environment and economy.  So he proposed establishing a special day to encourage such activity, and thus Arbor Day was born.

Arbor Day quickly spread to other states including Kansas, Tennessee, and Minnesota.  Individual states may set the date for their Arbor Day celebration to suit local climate and planting times.  The national date is officially the last Friday in April.  Other countries such as Australia, Japan, and Israel have established similar holidays.

Arbor Day Resources

There are many materials for the celebration of Arbor Day.  Some are for homeowners wishing to plant trees.  Others are for teachers and classroom use, or family activities.  Look around and you’ll find what you need.

• Send free e-cards to remind friends about Arbor Day.  The Arbor Day Foundation also sells “Give-a-Tree” e-cards; the donation sponsors a tree planted in a national forest.  This is an excellent option for people who don’t have room to plant a tree where they live.
• Buy customized gift trees for an Arbor Day event, wedding, company picnic, day camp, or other activity.
• TeacherPlanet has an Arbor Day theme page with clip art, lesson plans, worksheets, coloring pages, and more.
• Apples4theTeacher offers skits, songs, puzzles, reading lists, printable short stories, information about trees, and much more.
• eHow explains some ways of celebrating Arbor Day.

What do you plan to do for Arbor Day?