Take a Nature Walk and Make Art With Leaves
Go on a nature walk with your child and collect leaves for an easy art project to inspire curiosity about colors, textures and shapes.
While playing leaf detectives, Elmo and Rosita notice that different types of leaves fall from different types of trees. They compare fallen leaves to see which ones match.
You and your child can do the same thing! Take a nature walk to collect leaves of different colors, shapes and textures. Ask your child to point out the similarities and differences between each leaf. Then, take a few fallen leaves home with you and make art with them!
Materials
Directions
Invite your child to take a walk around your neighborhood or a park, either when the leaves begin to fall from the trees in autumn or sometime in the winter. You can bring a bag or bucket with you to collect fallen leaves, or you can carry a few as you find them.
Ask your child to collect different kinds of leaves from the ground.
After a few minutes of collecting, look at the leaves with your child. Help them compare the different shapes, sizes, textures and colors. Ask questions such as “What colors are they? How does each one feel? What do you notice about their shapes?”
Take the leaves home. Gather crayons, a piece of paper and tape.
Now, make a leaf rubbing together! Start by placing a leaf on the paper and taping it in place. Choose a crayon that matches the color of the leaf.
Flip the paper over so that the leaf is on the back. Rub the crayon over the paper. A leaf shape will appear!
Repeat with a few more leaves. Remove the leaves from the back of the paper when you’re finished.
Help your child sort the leaf art pages by color, size and shape. Ask your child to explain to you how they sorted the leaves.
Explore Further
After you make a few rubbings, make a chart to display your leaf findings. Then, count the number of leaves you collected from each type of tree. Take it a step further by learning about the trees the leaves came from by visiting your local library or using the Internet.
Photography by Lucia Pinto.
Math
Science