Looking for a fun activity that you can do with your children or grandchildren? You can enjoy an afternoon discovering nature and help them with their writing and researching skills! Of course, there will have to be some art involved too.

When I was researching and planning out my next 3D paper sculpture, I started to gather up my reference materials. As soon as I pulled out my old scrapbook, it brought back a lot of fun memories.

When my children were young, we enjoyed collecting leaves and acorns that were plentiful in our backyard. We would comment about the shape and the colors of the leaves. We especially enjoyed looking for leaves in the fall season — trying to find the best leaf possible. Sometimes the kids would hunt for the most colorful red, yellow or orange leaf, and another time they would hunt for who could find the largest or the smallest leaf.

When we would go back in the house, I would get out the scrapbook and my many tree and leaf reference books. My children would flip through the pages of the books to identify which leaf they found. We had quite a few different types of oak trees and maple trees to identify. Along with sassafras, sourwood and even a big tulip leaf. I can’t believe how big those leaves grow – it takes up almost the entire page in the scrapbook.

After we would all agree we identified the leaf correctly, we would carefully tape the leaf inside the scrapbook, making sure it stayed flat. Then we would take turns writing the name of the leaf on the page so we could remember the name and identify the leaves. Of course, we would also get out our pencils and crayons and trace or draw a few leaves too. After all, my fridge always seemed to need a new piece of art!

It was always such a good activity I enjoyed playing with my children. We got to “play” outside, exploring for a bit, and then go inside, and continue onto another project that all related to the environment and leaf collecting. Little did they know, I kept that scrapbook all these years and the leaves still look good!

I love seeing the pages where my children printed the names of the leaves when they were beginning to learn how to print and write their letters. Of course, those are my favorite pages! The other thing they didn’t know or realize at the time is the leaf collecting project became a wonderful scrapbook filled with reference material in it for me to refer back to time and time again, whenever I need to draw or paint a leaf. I think it is amazing how good all these leaves still look after all these years. And I still refer back to it!

Where did I come up with this idea? My mom of course! We used to flatten flowers or leaves inside a big heavy book, like an old encyclopedia, squishing the plant between two sheets of wax paper. We would check on it a few weeks later after it had time to dry. Every once in a while, you’d forget that you “hid” a flower inside a book, and years later, flipping through a book, a flower or leaf might fall out, which of course would always make us laugh. While we didn’t identify them and create one big scrapbook, my mom’s idea was definitely passed down to me.

Well, I hope this gives you some more ideas of things to do with your children or grandchildren. It is a very fun way to enjoy and learn about nature and our environment, too!