Over the past few weeks, we have been venturing out into the neighborhood in small groups as well as to the Music School as a class. The time outside has given us the opportunity to connect back with nature. Usually when we are outside, the goal is to get somewhere. We’re often rushing with a clear end point in mind and are not truly acknowledging what’s around us. During these walks and experiences, we’ve been intentional around taking the time to notice the leaves that have begun falling. The children have been:
Collecting Leaves
Painting Leaves
Drawing Leaves
Researching Leaves and the Trees
While working together on this shared art work, some children were inspired to change the color of the leaves by painting it brown. Others chose to draw or trace leaves. They paid close attention to the tiny lines that they observed on the leaves we collected around the garden.
“I made a triangle leaf!”
“I’m making the lines!”
Now that we have so many leaves from our walks, what do we do with them? We research! The teachers have introduced the term research to the children. Research is when we look for more information about something. We can research what kind of trees these leaves came from by looking in a book. We read these two books to help with our research.
Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert
My Leaf Book by Monica Wellington
