Fall Leaves

On Friday, my children accompanied my friend's son's Montessori class to go leaf hunting and identifying. I was excited that baby decided to wait a little so I could go with them.

I would have loved waxing the leaves with beeswax, but instead, we just put the two shiny sides of wax paper with the leaves in between and ironed them on low heat. Koko immediately ran to the Montessori room so she could classify the leaves from these two leafy reads we're enjoying:

Ken Robbins's exquisite Autumn Leaves
Why Do Leaves Change Color? (another Let's-Read-and-Find-Out book*)

We've been going on walks when the weather permits and trying to identify the different trees in our neighborhood. We mostly have oak and maple but there is a sugar gum tree next door that is rather lovely. I would love to have a Waldorf-inspired seasonal nature table, but every time I suggest bringing some of our findings indoors, Koko says she wants to save them for the animals. Recently, she scattered acorns about for the squirrels. We've also found a molted exoskeleton of a cicada and saw a grasshopper up close. I thought it was a cricket, but Koko insisted it was a grasshopper and she was right!

* I wish I could say that I love every single book from this series, but I can't. I went to a bookstore and read about ten of these books in one sitting, and some are written better than others. However, many of them are quite excellent.