Tot School: Autumn Leaf Hunt

The leaves are changing colors in our neighborhood and I absolutely love the beauty of this season.

So when I saw this cute little paint-a-ceramic-leaf set at the $1 Spot at Target, I had to get it! The morning I showed it to him and asked if he wanted to do some painting, it was a particularly beautiful, sunny fall morning. First we looked out the window and talked about the colors of the leaves. We talked about how they are usually green, but now that it's "fall" they are turning brown, yellow, orange, and red. He claimed to have found some blue ones too, so I went along with it. :) After he painted his leaf to his satisfaction, he went on to paint the paper with the autumn colors.

In that same "splurge" at the $1 Spot, I also picked up this cute felt leaf "pail." I hadn't thought of what I would do with it until after he made his leaf. That afternoon while he was napping, I decided we'd go on a "leaf hunt" (like an egg hunt at Easter) and collect various fallen leaves of different shapes and colors. I decided too that this would be a fun activity to include Daddy in, so we waited until he got home from work. 

Here's Burkley, Marcus, and of course Kedzie, ready to go on our leaf hunt!

We didn't venture far, there were so many leaves just outside our door and down our street. He was excited to collect whatever he could find.

His favorite color is brown (one of the few colors he knows) so was pumped when he found this big brown one.

We also discovered acorns. This picture was taken while he shocked my husband and I both by crouching down to collect acorns and he began counting them. He counted to twelve without missing a beat, er, a number. We were so surprised and proud! And confounded! We looked at each other asking if the other parent had taught him that. He apparently picked it up on his own. Sigh, unschooling...gotta love it. ;)

After he collected leaves till his pail was full, dumped them out, and repeated the process about four times, my husband and I decided we were cold and it was getting dark, so we went inside to begin to make a craft with our findings. I quickly sketched out a tree trunk on a piece of paper with a marker and got the glue. Before gluing down his treasures, Burkley wanted to add his own details to the trunk.

Then we started the process of carefully choosing each leaf and its position on the art project. My hubby teased me because of the amount of restraint it was taking me to not encourage him to put the leaves where I thought they would look best.

Here he's pointing out exactly where he wanted the acorn to be glued.

Time to add some more color!

After deciding it'd be best to reinforce the ole' Elmers with some hot-glue, the project was completed and we hung it on our wall. He was so proud of what he did! 

It was a fun, active way to talk about seasons and colors and let him express some artistic outlet. And, surprise, he showed off his counting skills too! Enjoy this season!