5 Orange Potatoes » leaves

land art and richard shilling

5 Orange Potatoes — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:10:18 +0000

Have you heard of Land Art? Have you heard of Richard Shilling? Richard Shilling is an Englishman that is a sculptor, photographer, and film maker that creates his art from nature. This type of art is called Land Art and is defined as- ”making sculptures using only natural materials gathered near to where the sculpture is made. Many of them are ephemeral and will last only a few short minutes before the wind or the tide takes it away…..He uses snow, leaves, wood and stone and anything else that mother nature can provide” (quoted directly from Richard Shilling’s website).

After watching the video, shown below, the little ladies and I were up for the challenge on this very cold, wintry day. Honestly, I thought it might be a little challenging in the winter wonderland right now, but our imaginations were on fire as soon as we ventured outside. We made all of our art purely from the materials provided to us by mother nature in our yard; no glue, no yarn, or clay was used. After our creations were made, we snapped some photos, then left the creations outside for the elements to do with as they pleased.

”Nature Chains Hanging in Oak,” the chain in the background (above photo) is made of thyme and the the one in the foreground is from a shrub in our front yard. To make the chains- cut a fresh stem and simply form a circle then twist one end around the other end of the stem. If your stems aren’t pliable enough for twisting, cut a slit in one end with a sharp knife, then feed the other end through the slit. The key to this chain is live, green branches and stems.

Here is Fauna’s “Snowboat” made of sycamore bark, a dogbane seedpod, and a scarlet maple leaf.

Araina’s “Pinecone Swordsman” made of a pinecone, acorn cap, and dogbane seedpod.

Now that you have seen our simple Land Art watch this amazing video created by Richard Shilling called- “Leaves and Light- The Land Art of Richard Shilling”

For more amazing photos of his Land Art visit his Flickr site, his webpage, and my personal favorite- Land Art for Kids which is full of very inspirational things to create outside, snap photos of, and then leave outside. Now I challenge you to go outside, no matter the weather, and make your own Land Art.

make leaf rubbing plates

5 Orange Potatoes — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:56:38 +0000

Here’s another good reason to get a laminator! You can make your own leaf rubbing plates (Fauna discovered this when we were making the odd leaf out card game).

Simply laminate a pressed leaf, trim around the leaf, place the leaf backside-up and you’ve got yourself a leaf rubbing plate.

These plates work just as well as the ones you buy from the education stores! These are much cheaper and you can use any leaf from your yard or park.

Poke holes in the plates and add them to a book ring (love book rings) for safe keeping. Label the names of the leaves with a Sharpie to help learn leaf identification. They are so much prettier than those plastic plates!

Thank you everyone who has voted for me for the Best Unschooling Blog Award, please keep the votes coming! If you haven’t voted yet- vote here.

odd leaf out (card game using pressed leaves)

5 Orange Potatoes — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:17:42 +0000

We have been collecting and pressing Autumn leaves all season, we just can’t resist those pretty colors! Part of our nature study is learning the names of the trees, especially the ones in our yard (I quiz my little ladies, husband and sisters all the time, poor things). I came up with a card deck to help the little ladies learn and identify the leaves in a fun way.

The first thing to do is go for a hike in your yard or local park and collect 2 leaves from each different kind of tree you find (preferably taken from the ground not off the tree); you also need only one leaf from one special tree. Press the leaves for at least 24 hours, this makes gluing down the leaves easier. We picked leaves from 12 different trees, 2 from 11 trees and a single leaf from one tree. We have a 23 card deck so far, but we plan to build on this.

What you need:
pressed leaves (at least 24 hours of pressing)- you need 2 of each leaf, and one single leaf like no other
manila paper, construction paper, or cardstock
glue
marker
a laminator or contact paper

Glue on the leaf and label it. I wish I would have had the little ladies include the Latin names, that’s good to know too; actually we will go back with a Sharpie and do this after they know the common names!
*You might want to add another thickness to the back of the card if using manila or construction paper; after putting the card through the laminator you can see a leaf print on the back. I don’t mind this because I like how it makes the girls recognize the shape of the leaf, not just the color.

Let the glue dry before placing in the laminator. I got a little impatient at first and put some of the cards in with wet glue, it smeared the glue and discolored some of the leaves. The leaves I was more patient with and allowed to dry overnight, came out perfectly.

Cut around the cards and they are ready for play. I also punched holes and keep the cards on a book ring to keep them together when not in use.

The 2 games we play with these cards are like Old Maid and Go Fish:

1. Odd Leaf Out- pass out the entire deck of cards, pull out the matches, take turns taking a card from each others’ deck looking for a match. The first person to match her whole deck wins, unless she has the odd leaf, in which case she will lose. ;(

2. Go Fish style (my favorite); however you don’t fish unless you have a huge deck of leaf cards. Pick a person, ask for a leaf, if no match it’s the next person’s turn. Once again you win if you match your whole deck, but lose if you have the odd leaf. I really like this one because the little ladies are calling out the leaves’ names looking for matches.

I’m sure there are other games to play with these cards. Of course you could play Memory, but remember to take out the odd leaf. These would be great to take on a hike to ID trees as well or do a scavenger hunt with them! I want to do an herbal deck too, but that will have to wait until next summer. Ooooh, and a flower deck full of pressed flowers would be pretty! The possibilties are endless! Enjoy!

preserving leaves and a leaf lantern

5 Orange Potatoes — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:30:06 +0000

Today we made lasagna (with homemade tomato sauce), roasted pumpkin seeds and preserved some of the gorgeous Autumn leaves that came down with the wind this week.

We like to preserve them in a couple different ways. We waxed some, pressed some, and coated some leaves in Mod Podge .

Then created with some to make the perfect November glow! This was so simple. We used Mod Podge to glue pressed leaves onto a clean glass.

Happy November!

polka dot trees leaf experiment

5 Orange Potatoes — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:23:29 +0000

Back in early August we put stickers on our trees’ green leaves to see if they would by effected by the lack of sunlight. We kept checking to see if a change was taking place and had no luck, UNTIL the leaves started changing colors.

We were so excited to find polka dot leaves last week! Next summer we will try darker stickers instead of white to see if we can get a change when the leaves are green.

How to do it:
1. Wipe a fresh green leaf clean, it must remain on the tree for this to work.
2. Place a dark sticker or tape aluminum foil onto the leaf. If you use foil, cut it into fun shapes….maybe even spell out your name or make a neat pattern.
3. Check your design weekly to see if a change has happened. Be careful pulling the stickers from the leaf, some will be too sticky and rip the leaf, so do a lot.
4. Try this on many types of trees and leaves. Be sure to keep some on the trees until the Autumn color change; I love the look we had this year.
5. Press the leaf to preserve it.

For an explanation on why the Autumn deciduous trees change color and more science experiments with Autumn leaves visit Science Made Simple.