Living Tree Self Awareness Activity

You will be drawing a tree…your own kind of tree. Leave enough space for the branches and the roots, too. Your tree can look any way you would like it to look. It should include the following:

Roots: Draw one root for each parent, grandparent and caretaker in your life. Roots nourish a tree. The people you represent with roots are the people who support you while growing up. It doesn’t matter what you fell about these people, just draw a root for each one.

Branches: Draw one branch for each family member. Usually you would draw a branch for each of your brothers and sisters. You can also include a friend, or another family member that means a lot in your life. Don’t include too many friends-just the most important people in your family life.

Flowers: Draw a flower for each thing in your life that makes you feel good about yourself. Draw a little picture or write a word inside the flower of the thing that makes you feel good.

Leaves: Draw a leaf for each significant event in your life. A significant event is anything that happened that changed you or your life in some way. Draw a little picture or write a word inside each leaf of the important event.

Fruit: Draw a piece of fruit for each of your achievements no matter how big or small. Inside each fruit draw a little picture or write a word to represent your achievement. Sometimes the fruits (achievements) relate to the flowers (things that make you feel good about yourself).

As you draw your tree, your attention is brought to various aspects of your life—you might see things you didn’t notice before, or see something about yourself more clearly.

Rubric:

CRITERIA STUDENT TEACHER

EVALUATION EVALUATION

Organization/Following Directions/Neatness
15pts / ______/15 / ______/15
Roots
5pts / ______/5 / ______/5
Branches
5pts / ______/5 / ______/5
Flowers
5pts / ______/5 / ______/5
Leaves
5pts / ______/5 / ______/5
Fruit
5pts / ______/5 / ______/5
Interpretation
20pts / ______/20 / ______/20

TOTAL PTS: 60pts

Interpretation: (type written)

1.  Use one word to describe your tree. Don’t think about it—be spontaneous. Does the word you chose relate to you and your life? Is there any connection?

2.  How would you describe the trunk? What does it look like? Is there something about you or your life that it might represent?

3.  How did you feel when you named each root? Did any feelings stand out? Who did it relate to?

4.  What memories came up while drawing the leaves, flowers, and fruits? Were there any that you had not thought about in a while? Did any memory or feeling stand out? Who or what did it relate to?

5.  Did drawing any of the pictures or words make you see something new about yourself or your family? What did you see? How did it make you feel?

6.  Is anyone or anything missing from your drawing? Why did you leave them out? What feelings did you have when deciding to leave them out?

7.  Is there anything in your drawing you didn’t really want to add, but did? Who or what was it? What did you feel about the person or event?

8.  Are any of the pictures much bigger or smaller than the rest? What does this mean to you?

9.  Does your tree have many or few branches? Are some of them cut or broke off? Is there anything in your life that feels the same way?

10. What do you feel about this tree as a whole? Are you fond of it/hate it/couldn’t care less about it…? How does this relate to how you feel about yourself? Is it similar or different? How do you think this might relate to your self esteem?