Tree Art

Part of Jake's homework last week was to take a walk and collect a leaf to bring to class. Of course this turned into an art project at the pleas of both my children. So off we trotted down our street, happily enjoying the day and looking for leaves.

Jake, my finicky child, was very careful about which leaf would be "the one". He didn't want one that was bent, or too small, or an oddball color. He was searching for his version of perfection.

After we'd been walking for ten minutes we had only passed by two houses. Jake had already been searching and hunting and had turned over, stepped on, passed by without a second glance, dozens of perfectly fine leaves. I wanted to yell "It's a leaf! Who gives a flying can of tuna!"... but I resigned to say: "Every leaf is a little bit different honey... just pick one that's halfway decent and you'll be good." *mentally rolled eyes*

Finally after another excruciating ten minutes of leaf searching he finally found exactly what he was looking for. The Heavens shined down on it, as it glowed from the gutter. It was a simple leaf, yellow in color, soft in texture, and had no marks or torn edges of any kind. Just as he held it up to show me, a gust of wind blew whisking the leaf out of his gentle fingers, and sending it into the street. My breath caught in my throat when it was almost swallowed up by the passing-by of an SUV.

"Quick! Into the bag!" I shouted. I was not about to endure another half an hour of this. Once it was safely and securely in the bag we continued our walk (with me secretly veering the children toward home).

While Jake had been concentrating on finding the Beauty Queen of all leaves, Ben had filled his baggie with darn near 80 leaves. Some were bent, some were torn, some were dirty, some were infested with bugs... and he was happy as could be about it. So then Jake whined that he only had one and apparently life wasn't very fair to him, and his baggie should be equally filled. He filled his bag quickly--at my insistence--and then off we trekked for home.

We made "trees" out of brown construction paper (which the kids crumpled up to resemble the "trunk"), and then they glued their leaves on the top. They loved this project and were so impressed with it! As soon as they were dry, up on the fridge they went!