Book of the week
The Leaf Thief by Alice Hemming and Nicola Slater.
Synopsis
A book about the changing seasons, with extra information in
the back for especially curious minds. A picture book that explores feelings,
moods and times where we feel out of control.
Weekly Activities
We discussed with the children about shapes and patterns in the environment, what shapes can they see, can they see different shades of green and we asked them which shapes they would use to create a house or face.
We began by creating shapes with sticks and asking the children to help fill the shape with different materials, making patterns etc. We talked about the colours, patterns, shapes they can see.
We then asked the children to work together to make their own land art or ask if they would like to make individual pieces inside a frame. We let the children take photos of their artwork on the nursery phones and suggested making repeated patterns – green, white, green, white etc.
At the end of the activity, we recapped with the children about what they already knew about shapes, discussed their work, asked them what shapes did they use, find or create and did they find any new shapes? What items did they use to represent other things and why did they choose those items?
Aims and Objectives
We talked about the textures, patterns, colours, shapes. Compared shapes (this leaf looks like a hand, this bean looks like an eye, etc).
We compared and categorised items according to their properties, put all the red leaves here, the green leaves here etc.
Other things that we discussed were: ‘Length’, ‘width’, ‘shape’, ‘position’, ‘pattern’, ‘repeating pattern’.
Home Activity
For lots more ideas on how to use sticks and other items for forest crafts, take a look at the mummymummymum.com blog below which has ideas for:
Leaf people pegs
Painting pinecones
Mini stick dens
Magic wands
Wild potions
Counting and sorting sticks and leaves
Making a stickman
Weaving
Weather forecasting with pinecones
Drawing leaf people
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