We're Going on a Leaf Hunt

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

We found a fun book for the autumn: We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. It is a fun take off of We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. Now Hazel got scared of We're Going on a Bear Hunt so we have not made it all the way through the story yet. However she enjoyed this version. It lends itself for a perfect scavenger hunt activity. I put together different sheets to vary it depending on age and on what you want to focus: colors, sizes, types of trees, types of seeds. If you have a group you can also make it a competition to see who gets the largest, etc. I made a sheet for that as well. 

 




For younger children you can look for colored leaves. Then of course they can also just collect leaves and sort them by color, shape, and/or size.

We went on a leaf hunt today and had a wonderful time. Hazel asked if we could go on one every day. We had a large wind storm with some rain the other day,so many of the leaves are down. Hazel loved walking through the crunchy leaves on the side of the road.

We decided to look for the colors. Here is Hazel holding up the orange leaf we found. And, yes, she had me hold it up so she could take a picture of me as well on her camera.

Then in typical Hazel style after picking up many leaves, she discovered mushrooms.

Then of course she wanted to take pictures since I was.

We also found many acorns and acorn tops as well as a few sticks. On the way home, Hazel decided to ride in the wagon.

When we got home we looked at all of our treasures.

We have needed to make two cards, a birthday card for her teacher and a thank you note for someone at church who bought her a beautiful dress. We decided to use our treasures to make the cards. Hazel stamped a piece of white construction paper with "Happy Birthday" and another with "Thank you." Then on the front we glued (or at least attempted, I may need to use some hot glue) sticks on as the trunks and Hazel Mod Podged the leaves on back side and stuck it onto the paper and then put a layer of Mod Podge on the front. The Mod Podge glue will help keep the leaves from losing their colors.

I let her do the gluing so they are still drying.

Our other plan is to needle felt some acorns and make necklaces or just acorns for her friends and teachers at school. And here is a picture of my favorite tree right now (the photo really doesn't do it justice):

OH and a quick update on our painted acorns. We pulled out the nail polish I bought for Hazel this summer and I let her paint with that. She had a blast and they came out really well.