More Fall Projects

Leaf Rubbings

Every fall while on a fall walk, we choose leaves from several different types of trees to use for making leaf rubbings. This is done by placing the leaves upside down on a table, (with the veins right side up). Place a piece of manila paper or white paper over the leaf and using a crayon, color over the paper where the leaf is. What you will have is a leaf rubbing, showing in detail the veins in the leaf. We then often made a leaf notebook from the rubbing and labeled each, telling what type of leaf is represented, using a tree identification guide if necessary. Or for younger children, just hang the leaf rubbing on the refridgerator, with their name and type of leaf they identified.

Bark Rubbings-

This is done by taking a piece of paper outside, choosing a tree and laying the paper up against the tree. Using your crayon, color the paper and the pattern of the bark will appear on your paper. It's fun to identify the tree with a tree identification guide. Again, older children might want to make a notebook with their bark rubbings.

Possible Bags-

Rick got this idea, I think, from his reading of the early mountain men. They would use a pouch to store things they found to be curiosities or things of interest from the world of nature that they stumbled upon in their travels. On our yearly trek to the Blue Ridge Mts, we would give the boys little brown paper lunch bags, their "possibles bags" and encourage them to put in it any items of interest we found in our walk through the woods. They would find things like acorns, leaves, moss, bark, stones, seeds, etc and fill their "possibles bags". Later they would set up a "nature museum" and label their finds and invite friends to come and tour their museum.

~Marilyn