Fall has arrived in Washington, DC and we all know what that means, the dreadful sugar highs of Halloween, a month of multiple 3 day weekends, and of course the beautiful changing colors of the leaves!
I can't express in words how amazing the story pictured to the left is for not only exploring scenes of Washington DC, but also of showing the changing of the leaves. This project is done with my Pre-K 3's and 4's and they absolutely love it.
We start by having Earl the squirrel come out (yup, my old TY Beanie Baby-remember when those were cool?). We then read the story and throughout look at the different architecture we recognize as well as the colors of the leaves. After reading the stories we make collages with pre-cut green grass shapes and a brown tree trunk, and students glue scraps of paper as leaves. The most unique part of this process is looking at what students choose. At this age color is something students take seriously, or are still very playful with. Some students will stick to digging out only the yellow, red, and orange scraps to achieve a "true" fall tree collage however some students will end up with purple, gree, blue, pink, and a variety of colors on their trees, and THATS OKAY!
I find that many times as adults, we want students to do the projects exactly as we have planned in our minds, and so to some, purple leaves or magenta leaves are not okay, but for me I love to ask the students about why the leaves are those colors. You wouldn't imagine the responses of what those colors represent whether it is fruit within the trees, animals, or "ummm, because I like this color.". It's crucial to let your students and children make their own artistic choices. Let them show their voice and express themselves through their art!
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