We do not own a traditional Montessori botany cabinet. It is one of those materials I have never been able to bring myself to purchase. I do, however, think exploring and learning leaf shapes is very important. We have done this through puzzles, card work, and lots of outdoor time!
I wanted to take leaf shapes a step farther, however, and give the boys some other ways to explore. We did a leaf dissection following the same procedure as the flower dissection shown here.
Using leaves found around our neighborhood, here are three ways we used art as a way to explore the shape of leaves through various mediums.
1. Pin Punching the leaf. The leaf is placed on construction paper, a dot placed at each point (to help trace more easily), and then the dots are connected along the edge. Then use the pin punching technique to punch the leaf from the construction paper.
2. Leaf Rubbing with crayons. The leaf goes under and rub over it with a crayon.
3. Leaf printing with watercolors, explained here by Jean at the Artful Parent. I will be honest, I didn’t love how this turned out, but I’m not sure that the paper I used wasn’t too thick. It absorbed the water more quickly than the leaf did. The prints are there, but they are very light.
The finished products (with the plastic wrap still on for drying!)
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This look like a lot of fun. I love the little face on the Pin Punch Leaf. I think there is an attraction to Capital letters. Some of my kids will ask me do you want me to write it with capitals?
Gathering leaves from your immediate area is on my list too. I think that is a great idea.
Heidi, You don't have your labels showing in your side bar so it is a lot trickier to find things you have written about…….I love going back through blogs I enjoy to read over some of the posts that may interest me (by label). 🙂 🙂 🙂
Kylie you can always click on the labels at the bottom of posts to see more about a specific topic, but I will definitely work on getting the labels back in some form if that is something you would like to see!
Cheryl- yeah..the leaf man. I guess when you are 6 everything becomes just a little bit fantasy!