Signs of Fall Nature Collage

Fall is our favourite time to head outdoors and enjoy the changes happening in nature all around us! Over the last few days we have spent time observing, enjoying, and gathering 'signs of fall'. We visited some of our local parks and our own backyard to gather leaves, pinecones, twigs, acorns, sticks, and flowers. Visiting many places allowed us to observe much variety in the kinds of changes happening in nature, and to collect a variety of materials.

In our own backyard we used scissors to gently remove some of the 'signs of fall' that we liked - an option not possible in the parks.

Our final collection contained a large variety of colours, shapes, and sizes of materials....it was beautiful!

We spent time placing the materials on the light table in order to explore them further. The kids immediately noticed that when the light shone through the leaves, their veins were visible. This lead to a neat discussion on how plants get the nourishment they need in order to thrive, and a comparison of the various leaves we collected.

After a while Cadence began to use the materials to create pictures. Can you see the girl holding the flowers in the picture below?

After observing the materials on the light table I wanted to encourage the children to create a nature collage on the back windows that they could enjoy over the next few days. I thought that placing the collage on the window would allow the natural outdoor lighting to filter through the objects, similar to the effects of the light table, and it would help beautify that space in our house. I used sticky contact plastic (from the local dollarstore) and adhered the plastic so the sticky side faced outwards. The children each had their own pane of glass and carefully selected items from our 'signs of fall' collection.

The final product! We left the materials on our doors for one week. It was interesting to see how they eventually dried out as time went on, leading to more discussions about the needs of living things.