Playing with Leaves

(Goblin is 4 years old)

The Neighbourhood kids came to call for Goblin. The kids on our estate that play are between 5 and 11. I find it ever so cute that they include Goblin, he is the youngest of their little gang and I don't let him go out on his own yet. 

Often they just ride their bikes up and down the paths or play with toy cars. Today they had nerf guns and were trying to shoot each other in the head. So I decided to encourage a redirection of play. To be honest I thought it would take a little more to convince them to play with something else. But it didn't, all I had to say was:

"Look boys why don't we play with these leaves"
All five boys threw themselves entirely into the task of collecting leaves to build a giant leaf pile.

They collected up all the leaves from under the nearby trees using a rake, and then they set off to collect more leaves from the gutters around the estate! I cringed a little when I saw where they were getting the leaves from, but to be honest they were about to throw themselves onto the muddy ground and roll around, they were all going to need a good bath after this anyway.

They lined up and took turns to hurl themselves into the leaf pile and do somersaults and rolls. Then they started a leaf fight. It was so much fun, they were all laughing and squealing. A couple of times someone got a leaf in the mouth or things got a little too rough but they managed to sort themselves out fine without any intervention from me. Catching a falling leaf is one of the National Trust's 50 Things to do before you are 11 and 3/4, I wonder if catching a leaf in the gob when thrown by another child counts.

Nature's toys are such a great leveller.

Kids Co-op

 
<center> <a href="http://www.tamingthegoblin.com/search/label/kids%20coop"></p> <p> <font color="#808080" face="'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/FkLk8.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a></font></p> <p> <font color="#808080" face="'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></center> Its Kids Co-op time, please link up your kids orientated posts and check out what others have linked. Bloggers love comments so please stop by and leave some if you find a link you like. You don't have to be a blogger to comment, most blogs have the option to leave a comment as "anonymous" - you can leave your name in the comment if you want to. Here is what I am linking up this week: ********

Autumn is such an amazing season, I love the smells, the colours, the weather (yes I actually quite like rain). So Goblin and I have been doing some really simple Autumn Art. Nearly a year ago I made a crayon melt painting which required all the blue, green and grey sticks in three packs of crayons. So I was left with all the reds, yellows and oranges. They have languished in the art box all summer. But with the beautiful leaves turning on the trees I realised my crayons were Autumn colours.

So I cut out some leaf shapes for Goblin and set them out with all the Autumn coloured crayons. Goblin hasn't been very interested in drawing recently so I was really surprised and pleased when he sat down immediately and started colouring.

Like many of our craft activities, Goblin's enthusiasm didn't last long before he was distracted by a toy tractor. But he did colour a few leaves which I thought were quite pretty.

If your child is more enthusiastic you might even get enough to decorate a branch - maybe we'll manage a small twig!
And now to the linky



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Kids Co-op Link up

 
<center> <a href="http://www.tamingthegoblin.com/search/label/kids%20coop"></p> <p> <font color="#808080" face="'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/FkLk8.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a></font></p> <p> <font color="#808080" face="'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></center> Its Kids Co-op time again. Please link up your favourite child centred posts and take a look at what others have been doing. Be sure to leave a comment if you like what you see. Here is what I am linking up this week. ****** Autumn Window Decoration

(Goblin is 34 months) The Autumnal Equinox took place on 22 September hailing the end of Summer and the Beginning of my favourite season, Autumn (or Fall for you guys who can't spell Autumn). It doesn't feel very Autumny here. There are no leaves turning and in fact today it was blazing sunshine. But none the less I felt the need to mark the start of the countdown to winter. So Goblin and I did "an Art".

I cut out some tissue paper leaf shapes in suitably Autumn colours. And stuck some stickback plastic (contact paper) on the table, stick side up.

Then I let Goblin stick the leaves to the plastic as he saw fit - notice his clever way of leaning on the table without getting his hands stuck to the plastic (he did that all by himself).

When all the leaves were stuck on it looked like this. I took a large piece of black paper, folded it in half and cut out a leaf shape. Then I cut out two vains - one for each side. I stuck the plastic in the middle of the folded black paper and glued it in place, gluing the vains in the middle of the leaf silhouette.

And this is what the finished product looked like. Now to the linky! I'm sharing this at

Leaf prints and foot prints

(Goblin is 31 months)

Granny used to be a primary school teacher and still tutors several children as well as doing Sunday school at her church. As a result she still has lots of craft supplies stashed around her house. While we were playing in the garden I saw the massive leaves on the rhubarb bush and thought they'd make some great leaf prints. 

So off I went rummaging in Granny's cupboards and came back with a plastic tray, yellow, green and blue paint and a roll of wallpaper lining. My plan was to get Goblin to pour the paint onto the tray and then I'd show him how to print the leaves and give him a go. But as usual Goblin had other ideas. 

He wanted to do foot print painting. It did make a great effect when he started because he ran the length of the roll. But he soon ran over the same bits so often that the foot prints were lost and it was just a big mush of green. 

I retreated to the other end of the paper to try out my leaf prints, leaving granny to field a painty boy who was slipping and sliding around in the paint tray and insisting on putting far too much paint down.

The rhubarb leaves looked great. I also found some Marsh Marigolds growing in Granny's pond, and these made very pretty and delicate prints. You can see them around the edge of the rhubarb leaf in the top picture above. And the green and blue leaf print is a type of geranium (apparently). This also made a great print.

When Goblin saw what I was doing he wanted to try too. He made a few good leaf prints but decided that squirting paint and running around with it on his feet was way more fun.

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