Leaf

I guess this is technically more of an ‘art’ than a ‘craft’, but either way, it’s full of so much fun and learning opportunity!

My three year old loves nature walks. Or as she has dubbed them, ‘treasure walks’. She grabs her little plastic pail, and we head off towards the rural woodsy roads that surround us. Along the way she collects all manner of leaves, rocks, sticks; anything that strikes her fancy. For the bigger stuff we have started making Treasure Sculptures to adorn our garden bed. But for the leaves and feathers she gathers, we’ve never really had a plan for them. And then it dawned on me that we’d never done rubbings before! Since my little tends to sway towards all things art/craft related (ahem, can’t imagine why) I knew she’d love it.

She selected a few leaves, and her prized feather we found that day.

And then the fun began! I just never get sick of that look – the complete wonder and amazement of seeing something happen for the first time. It’s absolutely one of my favorite parts of being a parent, and reminds me just how incredible it is that I get to hold her hand and show her the firsts in life.

She was so proud of her finished product! Definitely an activity we’ll do again and again. I love that this combines not only an art, but a learning experience as well. We talked about each leaf she collected, what plant it was from, etc. She has a blast, and learns. Double win.

-Kayly

Taking walks on fall days are just lovely. The weather is at that perfect temperature of not too chilly, but not too hot. It’s not quite hat and gloves weather; a sweatshirt does just fine. Me and my little miss have been fully enjoying the weather with lots of walks outside.

She is just starting to learn and grasp the concept of seasons – what that means, and what effects the different seasons have. We often take ‘treasure walks’ as she has dubbed them, where she carries along a little bucket and we collect treasures along the way! Her favorite fall things to collect are of course all the different colored leaves, and acorns as well.

Some driveway leaf collection as we headed out on our walk.

But instead of just tossing the leaves back outside, we like to bring them in for art projects. We started with a collage of leaves this season, using Con-Tact paper.

Bucket-O-Treasures, ready for crafting.

It’s about the simplest craft ever, but she loves it! I give her a piece of Con-Tact paper sticky side up, and she sticks on the leaves in different patterns. This week she made leaf ‘families’ and designated each leaf a title (Baby Leaf, Mommy Leaf, Daddy Leaf, Mimi Leaf – she came up with so many!).