Crafting With Fall Leaves

On Friday, Jonathan & I used all those leaves we gathered on our Thursday walk for our science class and a craft project. We learned about deciduous trees and why they lose their leaves in the fall. Then we made a mobile using our colorful leaves. First, we chose the very best leaves from the bag, then we placed them on a sheet of clear Contact paper.

Next we put on the top layer and smoothed it out.

Then Jonathan cut out each leaf, which took a little while but was great practice with cutting around all the little edges of the leaves.

We used a branch we found on our walk to hang the leaves on. We used twine I had on hand. Jonathan punched a hole in the cut out leaf (wherever he wanted to on the leaf), then I strung it with the twine in varying lengths. We tried a couple of different places to hang it, but the only place that really worked was the living room window. Jonathan handed me the leaves and I tied them on.

This is our finished product:

We tried to identify all of the leaves we were using. We have oak, maple, birch and some we didn't identify (yet...it was getting late in the evening and time for bed). We also left a little space to add any pretty leaves we find on future walks this fall.

We were both very pleased with the outcome of our combination science lesson and craft time. I'd like to take credit for thinking of this, but the idea came from Disney's Family Fun magazine. We have a few more crafts with leaves we want to try this month and we are hoping they will be just as much fun to do!