outdoor learning | g2g Outside
Winter Mission Trees: Leaf Hike
Posted by Rebecca under Free Play, g2g Outside Events, Nature, Winter Mission Possible | Tags: backyard fun, hiking, outdoor learning |
Comments Off on Winter Mission Trees: Leaf Hike
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go on a hike around your neighborhood or a local park to find interesting leaves.
Of course, trees have interesting leaves all year, but in the fall it can be especially fun to go out and look for leaves because many of the leaves are turning colors other than green!
Here are some things to look for when you go on your hike:
– Trees with leaves that are needles rather than flat leaves.
– Trees that still have green leaves.
– Trees that have dark purple leaves.
– Trees that have more than one color on their leaves.
– Trees that have very small leaves.
– Trees that have very large leaves.
– Leaves that feel very thick and leathery.
– Leaves that feel soft or fuzzy on either the top or the bottom.
– Trees with very strangely shaped leaves.
– Trees that have more interesting things on them than just the leaves (like acorns or fruit).
Here is a link for a more structured “Leaf Hunt” activity.
Fall is a great time to walk around looking at leaves for a lot of reasons. Of course, with leaves all over the ground, it is a lot of fun to run through them and crunch them up! Dry leaves can be folded along the veins to explore the symmetry of the leaves.
You can also collect leaves that are on the ground or gently take colored leaves off a tree to take home. If you put the leaves between sheets of newspaper, then on a rainy day you can take the leaves out and use them for an activity. It is really easy to glue a dry leaf to paper to make a card or use several leaves to make a collage. Older kids can collect a variety of leaves and identify them to start a leaf collection.
If you get your leaves home and want to try to identify the trees they came from, here are three websites that can help you out:
I’ve Got My Leaf, Let’s Get Started
Mission Report: Leaf Hike
Email your mission report to us at g2goutside@gmail.com. Your mission report should include the answers to the following 2 questions and a picture of you doing the mission.
1. How many different leaf shapes and colors did you find?
2. Tell us about (or show a picture) of your favorite leaf. Using a book or a computer, tell us what kind of tree that leaf came from.
Posted by Rebecca under Gardening, Nature | Tags: backyard fun, critters, exploration, getting dirty, learning with senses, outdoor learning |
Comments Off on The Science of Leaves
Are you sick of all the leaves everywhere yet? Have you raked and re-raked them into paths with your kids? I feel like I want to write this whole post saying something along the lines of, “GET OUT THERE AND DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING, WITH THE LITTLE BIT OF NICE WEATHER LEFT BEFORE WINTER NASTINESS HITS!!!” But I wouldn’t want to yell like that and scare you off.
Anyway, back to the leaves. If you are ready to get those leaves off the ground, it can turn into a fun science experiment with older kids. Given enough time and very little effort, those leaves will break down into beautiful leaf mold or compost. All you have to do is stack the leaves in a pile in an out-of-the-way corner of your yard. (Yes, some kind of wire or wood bin would be a good idea, given our wind.) The more the leaves are chopped up, the more quickly they decompose. Add some soil, grass clippings, or fertilizer and things will progress even faster.
Okay, that’s great, but how do you get the kids involved?
If you have space, make it a contest. Let everyone make their own compost pile and decide what to put in it – big leaves, chopped leaves, grass clippings, weeds, soil, vegetable scraps, etc. See who gets compost first!
Throwing chopped leaves into a bin can be made into a game for younger children.
Play a guessing game with your leaf compost pile. Guess how big (or small) the pile will be by spring. Ask your kids to guess what they might find in the pile when spring comes.
If your kids have a school science fair coming up, there are a multitude of opportunities here. You could get a compost thermometer and have them record the internal temperature of the pile each week, monitor the moisture level, and look for worms, insects, and other signs of life.
When spring comes (or even one of those really warm days in February), have the kids dig through the pile to find “buried treasure.” You could send them searching for worms or even something you hid in the pile for them to find. You get the benefit of the compost pile getting turned without the kids knowing they were working!
Who knew there was such a multitude of opportunities from just a pile of leaves?
outdoor learning | g2g Outside
Winter Mission Trees: Leaf Hike
Posted by Rebecca under Free Play, g2g Outside Events, Nature, Winter Mission Possible | Tags: backyard fun, hiking, outdoor learning |
Comments Off on Winter Mission Trees: Leaf Hike
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go on a hike around your neighborhood or a local park to find interesting leaves.
Of course, trees have interesting leaves all year, but in the fall it can be especially fun to go out and look for leaves because many of the leaves are turning colors other than green!
Here are some things to look for when you go on your hike:
– Trees with leaves that are needles rather than flat leaves.
– Trees that still have green leaves.
– Trees that have dark purple leaves.
– Trees that have more than one color on their leaves.
– Trees that have very small leaves.
– Trees that have very large leaves.
– Leaves that feel very thick and leathery.
– Leaves that feel soft or fuzzy on either the top or the bottom.
– Trees with very strangely shaped leaves.
– Trees that have more interesting things on them than just the leaves (like acorns or fruit).
Here is a link for a more structured “Leaf Hunt” activity.
Fall is a great time to walk around looking at leaves for a lot of reasons. Of course, with leaves all over the ground, it is a lot of fun to run through them and crunch them up! Dry leaves can be folded along the veins to explore the symmetry of the leaves.
You can also collect leaves that are on the ground or gently take colored leaves off a tree to take home. If you put the leaves between sheets of newspaper, then on a rainy day you can take the leaves out and use them for an activity. It is really easy to glue a dry leaf to paper to make a card or use several leaves to make a collage. Older kids can collect a variety of leaves and identify them to start a leaf collection.
If you get your leaves home and want to try to identify the trees they came from, here are three websites that can help you out:
I’ve Got My Leaf, Let’s Get Started
Mission Report: Leaf Hike
Email your mission report to us at g2goutside@gmail.com. Your mission report should include the answers to the following 2 questions and a picture of you doing the mission.
1. How many different leaf shapes and colors did you find?
2. Tell us about (or show a picture) of your favorite leaf. Using a book or a comp
uter, tell us what kind of tree that leaf came from.
Posted by Rebecca under Gardening, Nature | Tags: backyard fun, critters, exploration, getting dirty, learning with senses, outdoor learning |
Comments Off on The Science of Leaves
Are you sick of all the leaves everywhere yet? Have you raked and re-raked them into paths with your kids? I feel like I want to write this whole post saying something along the lines of, “GET OUT THERE AND DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING, WITH THE LITTLE BIT OF NICE WEATHER LEFT BEFORE WINTER NASTINESS HITS!!!” But I wouldn’t want to yell like that and scare you off.
Anyway, back to the leaves. If you are ready to get those leaves off the ground, it can turn into a fun science experiment with older kids. Given enough time and very little effort, those leaves will break down into beautiful leaf mold or compost. All you have to do is stack the leaves in a pile in an out-of-the-way corner of your yard. (Yes, some kind of wire or wood bin would be a good idea, given our wind.) The more the leaves are chopped up, the more quickly they decompose. Add some soil, grass clippings, or fertilizer and things will progress even faster.
Okay, that’s great, but how do you get the kids involved?
If you have space, make it a contest. Let everyone make their own compost pile and decide what to put in it – big leaves, chopped leaves, grass clippings, weeds, soil, vegetable scraps, etc. See who gets compost first!
Throwing chopped leaves into a bin can be made into a game for younger children.
Play a guessing game with your leaf compost pile. Guess how big (or small) the pile will be by spring. Ask your kids to guess what they might find in the pile when spring comes.
If your kids have a school science fair coming up, there are a multitude of opportunities here. You could get a compost thermometer and have them record the internal temperature of the pile each week, monitor the moisture level, and look for worms, insects, and other signs of life.
When spring comes (or even one of those really warm days in February), have the kids dig through the pile to find “buried treasure.” You could send them searching for worms or even something you hid in the pile for them to find. You get the benefit of the compost pile getting turned without the kids knowing they were working!
Who knew there was such a multitude of opportunities from just a pile of leaves?