Plants Part 1:

Trees and Leaves

Books: 

• From Nut to Tree by Millie Landis
• Why do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro
• A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry
• Leaves (The Basic Science Education Series) by Bertha Morris Parker
• A Tree for All Seasons by Robin Bernard
• The Tremendous Tree Book by Barbara Brenner and May Garelick
• Los Arboles Son Impresionantes! por Lisa Trumbauer
• A Busy Year by Leo Lionni
• A Tree is Growing by Arthur Dorros

Activities:

• Outdoors: leaf collecting. We only collected what we could find in our yard, but we also had some stored from our property visit. We gathered flowers as well. 

• Outdoors: tree observation. Identify trees around the house. Lay underneath them and look up through the branches and leaves. Feel the textures of the bark. Imagine the root systems beneath your feet. 

• Leaf and bark rubbings. Place the leaf underneath the paper on a flat surface, and color over it. For bark, take the paper and crayons outside. Place the sheet right up on the tree and color on it carefully (so you don't get a bunch of holes from the bumps and cracks). It's odd to think about the fact that you are using a thin slice of a tree to color on another tree. We also remarked that some bark really looks like skin, with little "flakes" piled on top of each other all over the surface (that can peel off). I recently read The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, and I will never be able to look at a tree the same way again. It is interesting to draw parallels between ourselves and trees, and to wonder at how they perceive their environments. 

• Pressing leaves and flowers. We took coloring books that we never color in and placed the plants in between the pages, then set it underneath a heavy tub of reference books. We will check on them in two weeks. We have some older pressed leaves from last year that I have yet to do anything with. I ordered an album with adhesive pages, and as soon as it arrives, we will transfer those leaves and flowers into it. 

• Laminated leaves. I actually don't own a laminator, but I do have clear matte contact paper left over from the "stained glass" crafts we did when we studied rainforests. I cut out squares of this, and placed the leaves carefully between the two sticky layers. Then I cut them out, following the basic shape of the leaf. These were great to look at and match to pictures of leaves in the books. We also held them up to the windows to better illuminate them and examine the veins. If I had a light table, these would be great to view on it. Someday! 

• Exercise: "tree" stretches. A little like interpretive dance or pretend play, really. First, pretend you are an acorn. Spread your arms out across the ground and stretch like your roots are seeking water. Then send out a shoot by reaching one arm up into the air and spreading your fingers out as the leaves grow. Then raise the other arm, and slowly stand and stretch, reaching as high as you can, with all fingers spread out. Then hold your arms out perpendicular to the ground like branches, and stand as still as a tree for as long as you can. Next pretend a wind is blowing your branches. Etc... repeat until toddler is becomes bored or exhausted. 

• Craft: Leaf painting. Gather an assortment of leaves. Paint the undersides, then press down evenly on a piece of paper. Peel off, and the leaf pattern is left! We did one page together, and then we each did one of our own. Evie did everything herself for her colorful page. She painted, pressed and peeled. She also picked all of the leaves. At first, Evie was only painting part of the undersides of the leaves. She said she wasn't a very good "spreader-outer." So I showed her how to paint the entire underside of the leaves, and held them down for her. By the end, she proudly announced that she was a better "spreader-outer."