Preschool Leaf Exploration

The other day I had a lovely class with a bunch of preschoolers at Peabody Mill Environmental Center. They stop by once a month to learn about science and nature and this month I was asked to teach them about leaves. This is what we did:

Outdoor Activity
We discussed how trees change throughout the seasons. Right now the leaves are very colorful and are falling to the ground since it is Autumn. We went on a leaf hunt and collected interesting leaves. We noticed how leaves can come in different shapes, colors, and sizes. A nice book that tied in with our walk was "Leaf Jumpers," by Carole Gerber. I quickly skimmed the book showing them the different leaf shapes and pointing out the ones that matched the leaves we had collected. We were able to collect red maple, birch, burr oak and regular oak leaves (as well as a couple I could not identify).

Indoor Time:
We discussed the seasons and talked about how trees look different in each season. I read the book "Leaves!" by David Ezra Stein and pointed out the trees depicted in each season. This is a cute book about a little bear who doesn't understand why the leaves are falling off of the tree, but is VERY happy (and reassured) when he sees new leaves in the spring. We were able to tell what season it was in the pictures by looking at the details in the illustrations.

Leaf Critters:
Once we came back inside with our leaves, we glued them to paper. We then added eyeball stickers to them and used a marker to add details such as arms, legs, wings, and/or antennae to make Leaf Critters. A good book that ties in with this craft would be "Leaf Man," by Lois Elhert.

Making Trees of Our Own:
The children also created autumn trees using simple art supplies. This was similar to the project I did the other day with the Kinders at Clark, but I used smaller paper (9" x 12") and traced their hands and had them color the "trunk" and "branches" with crayons. Then they were able to use wine corks to stamp paint "leaves"onto their pictures. They came out very cute and this gave us an opportunity to try some new stuff (stamping/printmaking, tracing, coloring) while learning the parts of the tree and noticing all of those beautiful fall colors.

Additional Activities:
Leaf collecting is fun for little ones--it is nice to see how many different kinds they can find! You can keep the leaves as they are or glue them to pieces of paper to make a leaf book.

Leaf rubbing may be overdone in some people's eyes, but it is fun! One thing I've done (that I saw on Pinterest) is to take a big long piece of paper (from a roll--maybe the piece is about 6' long) and tape it down to the floor or on a long table with various leaves scattered underneath. Show the children how to use the side of a crayon to make a leaf rubbing and the leaves magically appear on the paper. I used newsprint on a roll with great results.

Additional Fall Books: "Why Do Leaves Change Color," by Betsy Maestro is a great book for older children (and for parents to read so that we can answer all of those questions about Autumn!). It is one of the Let's Read And Find Out series of science books. "Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf," by Lois Ehlert is also a good one, as is "When The Leaf Blew In," by Steve Metzger (this one is great for cause and effect and a bit of silliness!).

Sing a Song of Autumn: many sites have great songs to get children up and moving. One site I like is  Perpetual Preschool. What a wonderful way to end the day with a song!

Fall Trees With Cork-Stamped Leaves

I had the best time today with about 60 kindergardeners! I was asked to do an art project with them as part of a Fall-themed day their teachers had created for them. It was wonderful--the children were so happy and they were able to explore outside, do some fun movement activities (I joined in too!) and they also did leaf rubbings and this stamping project with me. Thank you so much to the Kindergarten teachers at Clark Elementary School for allowing me to come in for the afternoon.

This picture has a flurry of fall leaves
flying wildly all over--and note the piles on the ground.
I'm so glad I'm not raking all of those leaves up!

I shared a nice little book called "Leaf Jumpers," by Carole Gerber with the children. This book was different than I expected--it's a fiction book. It described the sound, shapes and colors of leaves and identifies eight different kinds of leaf shapes within its pages. This would be a great book to read before going on a leaf hunt! It got us thinking about the colors and shapes of leaves. It also had some very poetic ways of describing the colors of the leaves: "...flame bright and vivid like a match." The back of the book has a little page on the science of leaves and why they change color.

I had the children listen carefully since this project had tracing, cutting, gluing and stamping. We need to listen when doing so much stuff with our art.  I then gave them a quick demo on how to stamp using the corks: dip in paint then stamp gently on paper--no smooshing the cork around! We aren't painting with a brush. It's up and down only.

Next we went over to our tables and began to work. What a great time and a lovely lesson on color and printmaking. Enjoy!

Fall Cork-stamped Trees

Supplies Needed:

• One 12" x 18" piece of construction paper for background (light blue or whatever color you'd like)
• One 9" x 12" piece of brown construction paper for tree trunk and branches
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Wine Corks
• Paper plates for paint palettes
• Red, Orange, Yellow, and Brown Tempera Paint
• Newspapers to cover work surface

Directions:

1. Trace the child's hand and part of his/her forearm onto the brown paper. This will be the trunk and branches of the tree. Cut the tracing out (most of the children were fine with this--we only lost a couple paper fingers, er, I mean, branches. Glue the trunk and branches to the background paper, making sure the base of your tree trunk is at the bottom of the page.

2. Dip the cork into the paint and stamp leaves all over the paper, filling your tree with beautiful colored leaves!  It's important to have the children fill the ENTIRE top of the tree with leaves--not just a couple along the edges of the branches! No naked trees--this isn't winter. Make sure you get all four colors of paint on your tree.

That's it! A beautiful fall keepsake!

Fall Leaf Rubbings:

When the children were done, they could move over to a couple tables where I had long sheets of newsprint from a roll, taped down. Under the paper, I had placed different types of leaves. They then could use flat-sided crayons to do rubbings and discover the different leaves I had "hidden" under the paper. This was a nice project to keep little hands busy for the last five minutes of class.

Homemade Stamps for Printmaking

Here's a great way for you to explore stamping and printmaking. And, it's inexpensive, fast and fun!

This past fall, at the NH Art Educators Association Conference, I went to a printmaking talk given by Liam Sullivan from the NH Institute of Art. One of the ideas he had for younger students was to make a bunch of stamps using wine corks as the handle. He suggested using bottle caps and such and gave us all sorts of interesting ideas for making stamps. Well, I asked around and someone gave me a big bucket of wine corks and then I started collecting bottle caps, caps from glue sticks, foam shapes, buttons, etc. Once I had a sizable stash, I heated up the glue gun and glued my "findings" to the wine corks.

We used some of the stamps to make Modern-dayAdinkra Cloths, but we also did this simple project that I got from Liam's slideshow. The children had fun digging through the box of stamps I brought in trying out all of the different ones and were very impressed with their finished pieces. This project not only showcases printmaking, but is great for explaining pattern, line, and repetition.

Stamping Sampler (Or "Stampler")

Supplies Needed:

• Stamps (see above description)
• Tempera paint, assorted colors
• One 8 1/2" x 11" piece of yellow paper
• One 9" x 12" piece of construction paper for backing/matte
• Pencil
• Newspapers
• Glue stick

Directions:

1. Make the stamps according to the description above. Some good ideas for stamps are shapes cut from craft foam, milk jug caps, glue stick caps, and wooden shapes (I even cut a few NERF bullets crosswise and made some interesting stamps).

The possibilities for homemade stamps are endless!

2. Draw a line on your paper going from one side to the opposite side. The line can be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, wavy, curved, zigzag, etc. 

3. Select a stamp, dip it into the paint and stamp it repeatedly along the line you drew.

4. Choose another stamp and another color and stamp another row of stamps parallel to your first line of stamps. Continue until the entire page is filled with rows and rows of multi-colored stamps!

A work in progress. This piece uses a large sheet of construction paper (12" x 18").

5. Mount your finished paper onto a coordinating color of construction paper using a glue stick.

ENJOY!

Some examples from my home school class.

Easy Valentine's Cards: Stamping with Wine Corks

I love homemade cards! This year, I used a wine cork and acrylic paints to churn out a few simple cards for my hubby and kids. This is a fun way to learn about basic printmaking and the options are endless!

I TOAD-ally Love You!
(OK, so it's actually a frog...)

Easy Wine Cork Valentine's Cards

Supplies Needed:

• A wine cork
• Acrylic paints (assorted colors, a pea size amount)
• Paper plate for palette
• Cardstock or a blank card
• A fine point marker (I used a Sharpie)
• Embellishments such as googly eyes or antenna are optional (the antenna I used are flower stamens from the cake decorating aisle of the craft store)

Directions:

1. Practice different designs on scrap paper before you move on to the cardstock. I found it helped to have a few sayings before doing the stamping. Here are a few to get you started:

• HIPPO Valentine's Day!
• I'm WILD For You!
• You're DINO-mite!
• HOGS and Kisses!
• You're My Sweet-Pea!
• You're My ALL-STAR! 
• I think you're TOAD-ally Awesome!

2. Dip the cork into a bit of paint (you don't need much) and then stamp it onto the cardstock. 

3. When dry, use a fine point marker to add details and wording to your card. The sky's the limit! Have fun!

Detail of the card for my daughter--my Sweet Pea!

Here are the Valentines for the kids. I thought of things they liked
and then made a card to reflect that interest. These would also make nice bookmarks.