Daily Dose of Nature for Educators: 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.