GUEST BLOGGER KIRSTEN PENDREIGH
The natural world is full of poetry and writing prompts! Beautiful, mysterious things can spark students’ creativity. Seeing nurse logs on my hikes inspired me to write WHEN A TREE FALLS: Nurse Logs and Their Incredible Forest Power. Fallen trees nurture new life in the forest, by sheltering animals, hosting young plants, and even providing a place for new trees to grow and repeat the cycle.
Preparation
Before reading the book with students, ask them to think about which forest animal they could imagine becoming. (Mammal, bird, insect, amphibian). [Choose from the list below.]
| bald eagle | great horned owl | big brown bat | douglas squirrel | red breasted sapsucker |
| pileated woodpecker | black bear | western redback salamander | varied thrush | garter snake |
| Pacific banana slug | pine sawyer beetle | chipmunk | coyote | spotted towhee |
| bobcat | western toad | coastal wolf | black-tailed deer | deer mice |
| wood boring beetle larva |
Read and discuss
After reading the book, discuss which animals students remember from the story. Which ones were the smallest? The largest? Which had they never seen before?
Ask students why animals and plants use nurse logs, what does the nurse log provide them?
Have each student decide which animal (or plant) they want to write about.
Writing prompts
Behavior
Have each student write about how their chosen animal behaved in the story. Re-read pages in the story that have animal actions. Ask students:
- Find different verbs to describe how your animal/plant moves.
- What does your creature/plant need to survive?
- What do you eat?
- Where do you find food?
- What do you drink and where do you find it?
- Where do you find shelter?
Sentence starters:
[ I am a _______.(snake) I ______(slither)/I am a ___. (slug), I _____(creep)]
[I like to eat ______[eg; (bear) I like to eat berries. (bird) I like to eat bugs.]
[I find ______ in ______]
Add on: Students could research additional facts for the animal/plant they are writing about.
Action
Have students dramatize their story with a scene of the tree falling.
- How did their creature feel?
- Sentence starter: When the tree _______down, I was _________ [Eg.terrified, curious,shocked]
- Have older students write more complex sentences. [Eg. I was tiptoeing in the dry leaves when suddenly the ground shuddered….]
Motivation
Ask students whey their creature/plant returned to the fallen tree.
- Sentence starter: I went back to the fallen tree because _________(I was curious/ I needed shelter from rain/ home for me/I wanted a safe place to rest/ a place to start a family)
Ask students how their creature/plant might hide in or around a giant fallen tree.
- Sentence starter: I hide__________(in a hollow/under the bark/ behind the log)
Look inside the pages of WHEN A TREE FALLS again – where are the other creatures hiding? Can you find them?
Craft
Once they have written their story, have students illustrate their chosen animal. The student could hang their creatures from a class made nurse log or the printable nurse log mobile.
On the back of each cut out creature, have students write the name of the animal, and its action. [Eg: A snake slithers. A coyote creeps.]
They could also hang their story from the mobile!
Featured image credit: “Nurse Log” by Mick Thompson1 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
Kirsten Pendreigh is a poet, journalist and children’s author from Vancouver. Her books celebrate our early instincts to care for the creatures that share our planet. Kirsten’s 2025 nonfiction titles, WHEN A TREE FALLS (a PW Starred review out in March 2025) and WHAT FISH ARE SAYING (out in June 2025) use lyrical language, onomatopoeia, rhyme, and other poetic devices to engage children in the cutting-edge science of underwater species communication and the crucial role fallen trees play in regenerating the forest.
Kirsten’s fiction picture books include MAYBE A WHALE (a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and Horn Book Book of the Year) and LUNA’S GREEN PET (a Today Show pick and Quill & Quire Book and CCBC Book of the Year). CAMPING IS A TERRIBLE IDEA will publish next year. . Kirsten’s poems are found in many Canadian literary magazines and anthologies including Best Canadian Poetry 2021. Find out more about at kirstenpendreigh.com and follow Kirsten on Bluesky or Instagram.
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