Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Nature Books


Summer is in full reign here, with preschool ending this week and more free time on our hands. With everything in full bloom and green plants growing everywhere, I decided to take the boys on a nature walk. I figured we could make our experience books, and learn about local plants along the way. Buckets in hand, we headed down the street to the empty lot "Magic Forest."

I let the boys select whatever struck their fancy- keeping a careful eye out for poison ivy. They gathered rocks, flowers, leaves, grass, and sticks. We headed home, and used crayons to make impressions of our materials. The flowers were too three-dimensional to do impressions, so we painted them and pressed them to paper.

I cut out the impressions, and we made our nature books.

Nolan was able to do some of this project (collecting the items, gluing, and painting). I had to do the cutting for him, though Matt was able to make his book with almost no help from Mom.

There was a lot of language learned today: various flower names (we actually found Forget-Me-Nots and Chickory in the empty lot), tree types (pine vs. deciduous), and rock characteristics (color, and whether it was shiny or dull).

The kids always want to keep things they find on our nature walks, and this way, they can!

5 comments:

Herding Grasshoppers said...

What a great idea, Leah! And they're beautiful. Language, exercise, AND fun = triple win :D

xraevision said...

Wow, Leah, what beautiful books and an inspiring idea. I'm sure we can discover a Magical Forest near our house too.

rouchi6 said...

wow this looks like a lot of fun and looks damn neat.really good work.

Joey Lynn Resciniti said...

That's such a great project! I tried to get Julia to make leaf impressions once and she wanted nothing to do with it. She had to paint the leaves and use them as stamps to make a complete mess.

I guess each kid finds their own way to crafting happiness!

Deciduous is a big word that we've been working on for a long time. Tricky that one is!

leah said...

I thought Nolan might learn the names of some of our local plants, but whenever we look at the book he simply labels them as "blue flower" or "big weaf." Sigh... Matt has figured out that Chickory looks different than daisies, though! It was still worth it for the fun of the nature walk- I think the boys loved putting stuff in their buckets, lol.