Learn about Leaves with Leaf Art

Turning leaves into art makes children much more aware of the shapes of the leaves. For children eight or ten years old and older, this awareness can be a first step toward learning to identifying the trees around you. Is it necessary to know the types of trees in your area? No, but learning their names is like learning the name of a person you walk by every day.

Leaf Rubbings
Materials: paper and crayons

Set a leaf on a table, vein side up. Cover with a piece of photocopy or lightweight drawing paper. Peel the paper off a crayon. Lay the crayon on its side and rub over the paper. The texture of the leaf will appear.

Leaf Silhouettes
Materials: paper, paint, and brush

This time, set the leaf on top of a sheet of watercolor paper construction paper will work as well). Dip the brush in paint (it doesn’t matter whether it is watercolors, poster paints, tempera paints, etc). Hold the leaf in place with one hand. Brush the paint from the edge of the leaf and onto the paper. If you start on the leaf and paint outward, you will get a crisp silhouette when you pick up the leaf. Replace the brush for a sponge for a different look.

Leaf Printing
Materials: paper, paint, brush, scrap paper

On scrap paper, paint the vein side of a leaf (use poster paint or tempera, watercolors will be too light). Keep the layer of paint thin. Lift the leaf and set it on top of construction paper or another paint that will hold up to paint. Place the painted side onto the paper. Cover with more scrap paper and then run your hand over the paper. When you remove the scrap paper and the leaf, the impression of the leaf will remain on the paper.

These are fun projects to do with kids whether you collect your leaves in your backyard or on a nature walk.

Nature Art for Kids – Word Art

Use rocks, twigs, and seashells to write messages to others who'll visit your location after you've left. You can do this art in nature project almost anywhere. This is a fun activity for children just learning their letters; but, it is even more enjoyable for children who can spell. For this kids’ craft, children use natural materials to write messages to others who will later discover their simple endeavors.

Children will need to gather a supply of twigs, pine cones, seashells, pebbles, acorns, etc. with which to write a letter or word. The location will determine the materials the children use. Kids might decide to write out each letter with a different object or use a mix of natural materials to create each letter. Encourage children to experiment and then judge the results.

When you select a location, you want it to be somewhere others will see the message without destroying it should a walker who isn’t paying attention accidentally scattering the letters with her feet. You should also be careful to avoid doing this on lawns – when a lawnmower comes on the scene, it could be dangerous for the operator and anyone in the area if pebbles or twigs start flying as the cutting blade runs over your project.

Children will also find it easier to work if they select a location where others don’t have to sidestep around a child to get to where they are going – so, no doorways, pathways, etc. It can be a challenge to find a spot where kids can work but where others will see their artistic messages.

With a work area and a supply of natural materials, children can write out words or messages to those who’ll come along at a later time and discover these expressions. This can be as simple as “Hello,” or can encourage an action, “Shhh,” or “Look up.” Letters six-to-twelve inches high work up quickly. You may want children to start with words containing approximately five letters.

Young children who are just learning their letters can use their gathered materials to form letters. Have a bit of fun by making a “T” next to a tree or an “S” from seashells. This is a casual way to reinforce what a child is learning in school. If your child is enjoying the process, you could help him write out simple words. When possible, scratch the letters in the sand or dirt and allow the children to form the letters with found objects.

This is a fun and easy kids’ activity to do while you are resting alongside a natural trail or while you are picnicking or having a snack. Children may become inspired to write a series of words, which develop into a short phrase when read together as someone moves along a quarter-mile or even a mile section of trail.

Find more nature-inspired art and craft projects in Art in Nature/Nature in Art: Art Experiences for Kids Ages 8 – to – 14 and their Creative Adults.

Photography Crafts for Kids

Originally published 2/25/2011 at explorealongtheway.com
In yesterday’s blog, “Nature and Kids – Been There, Seen That?” I suggested that parents and their children or preteens go out to one spot in nature each day and notice how it was different from the previous day. An easy place to visit may be a tree in your backyard, although you could visit a pond or vernal pool, a garden (even if it gets covered in snow), or any place that you will be able to go to the majority of the year’s days.

Older kids and preteens may find this activity more interesting if they take a photograph each day. However, they shouldn’t just snap a picture from the same angle each day. First, they should look at their tree questing for something different. Today they see a caterpillar and take its picture.

These photographs could become part of a nature observation blog. Maybe the blog consists of the photograph and fewer than ten words each day and only grandma who lives across the country reads this blog.

Maybe a month or a season of photographs gets put into a slide show, combined with music, and go onto YouTube. Maybe the images become the screen saver on the family computer – another photograph gets added each day – and you end up watching the year scroll by.

A crafty child may create a scrapbook combining photographs with pressed leaves or smudges of dirt or sand smeared across the paper. Print out the pictures to make a collage for each season. The pictures don’t all have to be the same size. Older children and preteens who know how to insert and manipulate the placement of pictures on the computer could connect the images from a month onto a single-page document. At the end of the year, you have a book.

You don’t have to start this project on January 1st. Start this in the spring so you can watch nature expand toward summer and then quiet itself for the winter. You may have more time in the summer to make this a regular activity. A teacher may begin this in the fall and go throughout the school year – will her students want to go to the schoolyard in the summer so that they can see how nature presents itself during this season?

The key here isn’t what you do with your observations; your goal is to start noticing what is happening outside your front door.