Adorn yourself with samaras, flowers, moss, leaves and more!

This is a fun activity to use just about anywhere-your backyard, on a hike, inside on a rainy day, walk around the neighborhood, etc. Just take a roll of tape with you! I have chosen to show how you would do this inside on a rainy day.

Supplies are minimal.

Supply list:  1. You will need scraps from your yard, garden, neighborhood sidewalks, forested area, etc. I have included, moss, dried grasses and field flowers, fresh marigolds and cosmos, fresh herbs (smells great!), small twigs, acorn caps, samaras. These are just a few, the possibilities are endless! This is a great way to use up the flowering heads of herbs. 2. Duct tape or masking tape (duct tape is stronger for heavier objects). 3. Your hands!

Step 2: Tear, rip, shred!

This is probably the most fun part of the whole project for kids. Tear your plant material into smaller pieces. This can be a rather liberating  and exploratory experience for the little ones, especially if they've been told "No" to picking flowers and leaves off plants in the past. Destruction can be good for learning!

This time it's ok to pull the petals off the flowers!

Next, wrap a piece of tape around your wrist.

Roll your wrist in the tray of natural materials.

The finished product.

This project can be done just by simply rolling your wrist on the ground in a park, forest, etc. See what natural materials you can pick up!

This "nature bracelet" idea was taken from this book full of great ideas!

Activity write-up can be found on pg. 391.

Trees & Leaves Nature Play session

 For this session, we focused on exploring leaves and trees. Our first activity was building forts out of sticks. We used silkies as the roof and walls. We neglected to take pictures of this (having too much fun), so I will post some photos of this later.

Our first craft entailed making a sketchpad with a cloth cover. This sketchpad idea was inspired by programs at the Garfield Park Conservatory (http://www.garfieldconservatory.org/families.htm). This is similar to the bookmarks I made on an earlier post in July, except that we used rocks to pound out the pigments in the leaves (worked pretty well although you can't see details of the leaves, just color). It is a safer option for smaller kids than using hammers). I selected herbs and some weeds growing in the forest preserve to use as pigments.

A Mom ties on the sketchpad as a necklace
 to make it easier to take along on the hike.

We also made art using tree cookies and colored pastels. The tree cookies were sliced pieces of a log I had lying around my yard. The oil pastels hold up during rain, so this makes a fun garden decoration.

Endless color and design variations with the tree cookie art!

Even the smallest little ones can participate. 

For the really young ones, the tree cookies would still be fun (a great keepsake) but we also provided sensory buckets. A bucket full of large river rock was fun to explore for little fingers. I used the toilet paper tube test to determine choking hazard size.

Then it was time to take our nature sketchpads out on a hike. Each child received a bag full of chubby rubbing crayons to take with.  We were hunting for interesting bark to make a rubbing.

We took our sketchpads on our hike
 and made bark rubbings. 

Some families got really creative and
found amazing trunks to experiment with!

Sample of a bark rubbing-I think this is a black oak tree.

A parent spotted this tree struck by lightening
-notice the branches hanging upside down!

I believe this is a White Ash tree.