Fall Science with Leaves and Pine Cones

Fall is a great time to gather natural materials to using in play, art and learning, and there are a great variety of things you can do with them, from painting on leaves to making collages of natural materials, drawing the parts of a leaf or a pine cone, and using those observations to learn more about the natural world.

Dayna from Lemon Lime Adventures has gathered some great ideas for exploring natural materials.

First, I love this experiment about why pinecones open. It’s honestly something I’d never thought about, but I think the observations her kids made and the experiment they came up with to learn more about how and why pinecones open and close were excellent. This is a great one to try if you have pine trees in your yard or where you walk in your neighborhood so you can gather a bunch to play with.

She also has a great list of sensory activities related to leaves including art projects, sensory jars, leaf playdough, a fall scavenger hunt and more.

Which reminded me of another leaf-related activity I saw recently involving leaves of different colors in water. I saw it a Kiwi Crate. Your kids will be surprised how easy it is to get the color out of leaves.

Do you have any activities involving leaves that you love to do? I’d love to hear about them!

Check out this article on the best STEM gifts for kids.

Check out our Online store for special buys on Educational gifts We find bulk items and end-of-stock supplies to bring you heavily discounted items. (make sure you check our store often so you don’t miss out on new stock). We also have some free printable files, including a Science PDF for learning about Microscopes.

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Leaf Reading and Writing Activities

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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