Our Leaf Shapes Study

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

It’s Mavi’s midterm break this week and I decided to have activities that both of the boys can do together. First in mind is a leaf study, since we are currently surrounded by beautiful and colourful leaves. They are just too gorgeous when they change colors and I don’t want to miss that opportunity! For this activity we also made use of our Montessori Inspired Leaf Shapes printable which you can buy from my shop.

We started by reading books like Why Do Leaves Change Color and My First Montessori Book of Leaf Shapes. These are really great books to begin with! After which, we explored and gathered leaves from our neighbourhood for days. I remembered that we have to walk in different routes each day so we can gather different kinds of leaf shapes. I also made a Montessori Inspired Parts of a Leaf Booklet and Nomenclature Cards which we will use in our upcoming activities.

Montessori Inspired Parts of a Leaf Booklet and Nomenclature Cards

I hate the idea of laminating natural objects, as this takes away the feel of their natural texture. But I read somewhere that laminating leaves preserves their color and shape for a longer time, and that’s what I did!

I also made these Montessori Inspired Leaf Shapes Nomenclature Cards for the boys to use. I hand drawn these and used markers for the colors. Vito, who is currently crazy over nomenclature cards, enjoyed matching the shapes!

These are bigger cards, which according to Mavi are way better than the ones I used to make (back in 2013).

And I made Mavi match our laminated leaves to the control cards of the leaf shapes. Some of the shapes were so difficult to identify.

As an extension, we did nature journaling! I attached the leaves to the board and made the boys paint their favourite leaf or leaves, taking into account the shapes. Vito was identifying the leaves through their colors (understandable for his age) while Mavi chose “the most beautiful” leaf (but later on decided to paint some more).

Vito’s work. He’s making green and red leaves.

Mavi’s works.

It was another successful activity on my part because the boys participated and enjoyed the activities. Hope I will have the same response when we do parts of a leaf!