An Exciting Leafy Adventure

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This blog post has a mind of its own, lol! First it was supposed to be all about fall picture books, then all about trees and now? Now it is a delightful nature adventure amongst leaves and leaf people. A mix of nature walk, nature journaling and arts and crafts, I have a feeling this will be a day for the memory books. Will you come on this adventure with me?

Rabbit Trail

As I was pulling out our fall picture books, the first two that I found were Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and Look What I Did With a Leaf! by Morteza E. Sohi, and so down a rabbit trail I went. I always have a hard time remembering which leaf belongs to which tree, but it is something I want to change. So I made a mental note of including some tree recognition in our fall nature studies. I know the two trees we have on our property: cottonwoods and russian olives. They are easy to differentiate and recognize, especially when they are not overcrowded by any other tree, lol. Then I re-read the books quietly and a whole plan was triggered…

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

This is such a fun book! Lois Ehlert must have had so much fun making it. The leaves decoupage technique used in this book is just stunning and definitely requires quite a bit of imagination and planning.The leaves used for decoupage are actually photocopies of the leaves that she used to write her earlier book Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.  How fun is that? She kept them and re-used them. I love it! Red leaf, Yellow Leaf is another great leaf book that I will be adding to our collection this year for our leafy adventure. It looks babyish but is actually a wonderful treasure!

But back to Leaf Man

This picture book has always enchanted us, no matter how old the kids get, they still pull it out every year. The landscapes that accompany the story are breathtaking, vivid and beautiful. The storyline is simple: a Leaf Man has got to go where the wind takes him, he does not have a choice. We all understand that, the wind blows and the leaves follow. It opens wide the door of our imagination: where will Leaf Man go? To visit the chickens in the yard or the ducks in the pond? Where will Leaf Man end up? It is all so magical.

Look What I Did With a Leaf! by Morteza E. Sohi

This is an instant companion to Leaf Man! Once our imagination is ignited, it is the simple push needed to go from imaginary to reality. This field guide/craft handbook is the most perfect book in any fall basket. After reading, and re-reading it, anyone will want to go out in nature and hunt for leaves of just such and such shape or color. Equipped with Morteza E. Sohi’s careful direction on how to choose a leaf, either for its shape or color,  we are able to bring home enough material to create our own Leaf Man (or Woman) story. It is now easy to bring to life where our own Leaf Man will go and whom he will visit. This is such a wonderful fall activity that can be spread over several days. Make sure to learn to which tree each leaf belongs.

So here is the plan…

This is a little ambitious, but if I can make this day come true, I know that it will be the best fall day ever! Leaf Man will be read during morning time and we will page through Look What I Did With a Leaf!. We will focus our attention on the instruction on leaf gathering and cleaning. My hope is that we will be well prepared to know what we are looking for before heading out the door. Then off to a Nature Walk we will go. Equipped with our Nature Journals, and a container for our leaves (I find that a flat bottom basket with a nice handle works best) we will head into nature to admire, breathe in and gather her bounties.

A fall Nature Walk

I would recommend choosing a nature walk location that has many different types of trees in order to gather and study the different leaves. Once on location we love going for a nice walk or hike while keeping in the back of our mind the purpose of the walk. We usually take a nice snack and water break just before turning around during which we spend some extra time with our nature journals, maybe 10 to 15 minutes. During this time each person is free to fill their nature journals as they please. I very rarely dictate a specific assignment.

Learning about leaves

But for our leafy adventure I want to add one specific learning experience. Outside of gathering leaves for crafting we will also spend some time doing some bark and leaf rubbings. For each different leaf that we gather we will identify the tree that it came from. Once we have the tree located we will pull out some loose sheets of printing paper (I find that they work best) and some crayons. Each of us will take a small sample of the tree’s bark by placing the paper on the tree trunk and rubbing with the crayon until we have a duplicate of the bark. Accompanying it will be a rubbing of the leaf. If we know the name of the tree we will write it right there and then but if we need to look it up we will do so once we are home. In this hands-on way it becomes easier to retain which leaf belongs to which tree.

Back home

Once home, we will get to work on a two fold plan: writing an autumn poem or story and illustrate it with the leaves gathered. Before we get to work we will read a few fall poems (I really like this one), and Wild Child by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by Greg Couch, to get our creative juices flowing. Again this is a very loose assignment where each person can let their imagination fly. Some might choose to write a Haiku, others might write a long story. The goal is to get all of us to put pen to paper and write. Once our writing project is finished we can illustrate it with our leaves, again let imagination take over. With the help of Look What I Did With a Leaf! Illustrating our writing will be a delight. We will also check our tree reference books to complete our bark and leaf rubbings. The rubbings will then be glued into our Nature Journals.

Last but not least

Our day will end with hot cider and cider donuts (because my little baker excels at these delicious baked donuts) and reading Miss Hickory, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. Miss Hickory is a bit of a nut case… She is a lovely doll made of apple wood and a hickory head, abandoned by her mistress at the dawn of a New Hampshire autumn. What will she do and how will she prepare herself for winter? A delightful story of autumnal preparations, an adventurous winter and the resourcefulness of a little twig doll. It is a chapter book, but the end of a day like today seems to be the perfect time to start it. 

Will you join us in a leafy adventure this fall? I absolutely love being able to spend the day outside while accomplishing a full day of school. These are by far my favorite days! It might have to  be spread over a couple of days, depending how far we venture for our Nature Walk. But what a memorable couple of days it will be. Please tag me on instagram in your pictures! I will try to post as many pictures as possible of our leafy adventure there.
Love,
Mattie

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Fall Picture books and Nature Study
For the Love of Nature
Nature Table
Poetry