The Girl Who Planted Trees

Everyone has the power to change the world. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what you do, we all make decisions everyday that impact on our local and global environments. It can be daunting, and often we’re struck with what an impossible task looking after the planet is. We know it isn’t easy, and we know it’s difficult to see that little things on their own do make a change. But, little things can be inspirational, as our new workshop demonstrates.

The Girl Who Planted Trees by Caryl Hart won Teach Early Years Best Picture Book Award, 2022 and is one of our favourite SCRAPtastic Stories workshops. A little girl has the dream to sow seeds and grow a forest – she is met with various challenges but her determination to make a difference inspires her community to do the same. And the results are joyous!

Our SCRAPtastic Stories workshops have been developed to teach sustainability and bring an understanding of caring for our planet to early years and KS1; we are never too young to make a difference in the world. At Sneyd Academy in Stoke we lead two sessions with their reception children. The workshops begin looking in a rubbish bin to find out what people throw away… should old clothes, milk cartons, cardboard, magazines and yoghurt pots be thrown away? “NO!” comes the cry. What should we do with our rubbish? Most children tell us to “RECYCLE!” but at fairandfunky we say “don’t throw it away, make something!” By sharing some of our SCRAPtastic makes we open a conversation about re-using, re-purposing, re-thinking, re-ducing and re-cycling our rubbish.

We then tell the story of The Girl Who Planted Trees. An example of a ‘girl, just like you,’ who is taking her own little steps to change the world and look after the environment where she lives. And to celebrate that, and to remind everyone that we have our part to play, each student then made a beautiful bird mobile inspired by the birds in the story. The Girl Who Planted Trees created a forest and the children of Sneyd Academy created a flock of birds to fly out of the classroom and tell their communities how important it is to look after our planet.

“The workshop related to our topic learning in class and was amazing, engaging, and inspiring. The children were engaged throughout and now have a better understanding of recycling. We had a fantastic, very creative and enjoyable day. The children loved it!” Teacher feedback.

Each class also received a copy of the book to keep and treasure. We’re lucky to have ‘READ’ an independent bookshop in Holmfirth, that means we are always adding to our SCRAPtastic Stories repertoire! Please take a look here: School Workshops Archives – fairandfunky – fairtrade products to discover the range and do get in touch to book a workshop for your school. Or if you know of a book we SHOULD be featuring – let us know!