Kindergarten brought their collecting baskets to the woods, ready to embark on a nature adventure. The closer we got to our outdoor classroom, their excitement grew and grew. Once there, children moved freely around the forest, collecting small, medium, and large leaves of various colors and types. Children shared about their own leaf collections, and were naturally curious about what leaves their friends chose to collect.
“I see a hole in it!”
“The stem is so long!”
“I found a big red leaf!”
We took our leaf collections back to school, where we examined them closer and decided to use them as counters on large ten frames. Since we enjoy being outside, we carried our baskets and ten frames to the playground. While there, I wrote one number at a time on a white board, describing how to form the number while writing. Children shared with one another what the number was and then used their leaves to show how many.
We enjoyed this activity because it was outdoors and we got to use our own leaf collections! Creating a fun and meaningful hands on activity.
Jessica McMichael
Meroby Elementary School, Kindergarten
