During the fall season in the Preschool room here at RisingOaks Early Learning | St. Luke, there has been a noticeable interest in leaves. They are a big area of interest during outdoor play, being jumped in, observed, and collected. Because of the interest, we decided to go on more walks through Millen Woods, a nearby forest area with lots of leaves and trees. As we walked along the path, there were so many leaves to crunch. Some of the children enjoyed kicking the leaves and watching them float up into the air before falling back down onto the pathway. The children helped Educator Merline collect lots of different colours and shapes of leaves. The children noticed the leaves falling from the trees and they got so excited to watch.
The next day, Merline added some leaves that had been collected the previous day to the playdough activity. The children used the rolling pin to roll over the leaves, thus pressing them into the playdough. Observing the design that the leaves created on the playdough, one child commented, “The leaves have lines, I see them.” Merline said, “The lines are called veins, I wonder why leaves have veins.” Joining the conversation, another child answered, “I think they help the leaves hang from the tree.” We then decided to find out why.
As the educators and children watched an informative video and read about veins on leaves we learned that ‘veins carry water and food around the tree to keep the tree healthy and strong and also help leaves hold their shape.’ While adding natural materials to the playdough activity encouraged the use of fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and creativity, the experience also supported conversation and positive learning attitudes such as curiosity and engagement through play.
In another leaf activity, we took the leaves we gathered on another walk and turned them into a full-size sorting activity. We sorted the leaves into three categories: big, medium, and small. Merline and Educator Kary started off the activity by picking a leaf, talking about its size, and then placing it in the correct column. Watching the educators, the children began selecting leaves and figuring out where they belonged. “Look at this one, it’s little,” one child said. The word ‘medium’ seemed unfamiliar to many of the kids, so the educators helped clarify by comparing the different sizes. Kary explained, “Big leaves can be as large as your face, medium ones are about the size of your cheek, and small ones are like your nose.” Besides enjoying the outdoors and collecting leaves, this activity also helped develop mathematical skills like recognizing patterns, comparing sizes, and enhancing critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Perhaps next time, we can use measuring tools to see how the sizes of the leaves compare!
On our next walk to Millen Woods, the children participated in a colour sorting leaf activity. We had four big pieces of paper with different colour paint chips on them. There was red, orange, yellow, and green. The children were invited to find leaves and sort them into colours by placing them on each paper, then we taped them down so they wouldn’t blow away. We found it very easy to find red and orange leaves and a little harder to find yellow and green leaves. Many of the children were excitedly sharing their findings with their peers and educators, they showed their verbal communication skills as well as social skills through this.
Expanding on this interest of leaves turned out to be a learning experience for all. Through sorting activities, observation, playing with leaves, and using the environment as the third teacher during our walks in the woods, we were able to learn more than we could have imagined.
