Parents: Nature Collage Activity Plan

Activity Plan: Nature Collage

Created by: Rose Martin

Photo courtesy Samantha Beach from Pexels.com

Age Group: 2-5 Number of Children: 4-6 Brief Description of the activity: Start with collecting nature items, you can bring a field guide of local plants or use your phone to look up names of the plants or items you find*. This brings in an element of language, science, and literacy learning into the activity and also helps to know if you have found a poisonous plant if you are doing this activity with very young children. Bring items to the art table, add glue to paper/cardboard/etc to make nature art collage. This can be done all in one day, or over the course of a week depending on children’s interest. Extra time can be spent collecting and identifying items to extend the learning.

*There is a free app that you can put on your phone called “Picture This: Plant Identifier” which allows you to snap a pic of the plant and it will pull up the name and some information about it.

Materials Needed: Nature Walk: *paper bags or a basket

*if possible: field guide or a way of identifying plants found along the way Art collage: *Children's glue *cardstock or construction paper

*trays to create individual child’s work area and contain spills *childrens individual bags of found nature items Set Up: *set out a tray and lay out the found items

*one small glue bottle per child How might the children participate? *searching for nature items *may want to pull from live plants *pour or dab glue onto paper *pile nature items or place carefully What is the adult’s role? *Set guidelines for collecting (if you are in a public space, you may want to only use items found on the ground, not pulling from live plants)

*guide children in finding items and sharing information about the plant they found *ask questions to deepen thinking:

“What do you think it is?” Seed? Flower? Stone?

“What part of the plant might it come from?”

“what colors/textures do you see/feel?”

“Does it have a scent?”

*Math related questions you can ask:

“how many of each item did you collect”

“how many items to you have all together?”

“Which item do you have the most of?”

“Which do you have the least of?”

Questions this activity might answer: *many questions related to found items: name, vocabulary, what is its purpose, etc… *How do you know of a plant is living and if its okay to collect it *what glues well onto paper and what does not (rocks vs. twigs or leaves) and why? What new language could be introduced? *various vocabulary around found items: describing-texture, scent, color, sound as well as the actual name of the plant/item *mathematical vocabulary: sizes, categories, simple math operations “how many do you have all together”, “if we take away these, how many are left”, “how many of each item do you have?”

Developmental Goals: *Fine motor: using glue and placing items on paper/base *Language/Literacy: using field guide to research found items, seeing and hearing new vocabulary; dictating description of artwork to the adult, or “writing” it themselves. *Math: counting items, grouping by category (ie-color, texture, size…) *Cognitive: creative thinking (doing the art), problem solving (how to get a 3D item to stick on paper/base), *Social/Emotional: Creative self expression, helping each other find items, sharing materials and space, talking about their art.