Book of the week
What Do You See When You Look At a Tree? By Emma Carlisle.
Synopsis
What do you see when you look at a tree? Leaves and twigs and branches? Or do you see a real, living thing, that moves, and breathes and dances?
Immerse yourself in this gentle book that encourages us to explore our connection with nature. This wonderful picture book explores themes of empathy, mindfulness and personal growth through the eyes of a child.
Weekly Activities
To make the most of all the recently fallen autumn leaves, we decided to make leaf baskets this week. The resources we would need included:-
Balloons
PVA glue
Paint brushes
Scissors
Lots of large leaves
We started off by asking the children to collect as many large, colourful leaves as they could find. When we had a good size collection, we started blowing up the balloons and tying a knot in the end of each one.
...next was the fun, sticky part!
We asked the children to take a paint brush and either paint one end of their balloon (the end without the opening) or paint one side of their leaves. Once done, they could start sticking the leaves onto the end of their balloon, making sure they leaves overlapped as they went. Once they had covered roughly a quarter of the balloon we asked them to stop. We wrote each child's name on their balloon and then took them inside to dry.
Once they had dried, we carefully cut the opening end of the balloon to deflate it and gently prized the balloon off of the leaves. The inside was still wet and sticky on many of them so we stuck on some more leaves and set them to dry once more. Once dry, the children could (carefully!) take their leaf baskets home to enjoy. They were very delicate so I'm not sure how many made it home intact :o)
Aims and Objectives
Explore natural materials
Explore and respond to different natural phenomena in their setting
Develop hand-eye co-ordination
Develop manipulation and control
Most importantly - have fun getting messy and sticky!
Home Activity
Fallen leaves are everywhere at the moment so why not make the most of them by trying out some of the autumn leaf craft ideas from the Woodland Trust blog:
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