To continue my commitments with disrupting consumerism and working with sustainable materials, Ive decided to start an exploration with leaves. When Fall comes and the leaves change colours, I am reminded of growing up in the caribou region of BC. I feel connected to myself when leaves begin to hit the ground. A leaf is just a small part of a larger living entity yet I believe I stand to learn a lot from working with them, along with the fact that they can be used (responsibly) as a sustainable material.
Leaf Walk
Today, I invited the children to come on a walk with me to collect leaves for our exploration. Some children were happy to pickup the leaves that had already fallen on the ground, while others wanted to pluck the leaves that were still attached to a branch. The majority of a group were picking up leaves of all shades whereas there was one child who would only pickup red leaves. We also found a couple chestnuts that intrigued us. I am excited for us to interact more with the leaves we’ve collected.
Drawing with Leaves
To continue our thoughts on leaves, I gave an open invitation to our room that they could come and draw with me outside if they felt called to it. I brought out only pencils or grey pencil crayons, paper, and the leaves we collected on the previous day. I spread out the leaves on the paper and waited until a child came over. I noticed one child making big, long lines and mentioned it to him. He told me “I know big leaves”. After, a different child told me she decided to draw herself within a leaf. With another child I closely inspected a leaf and we talked about the lines we could see. Although I only had a couple of children participate, the paper I offered filled up quickly and completely. I plan on inviting the children to draw with me again soon.
Back to Drawing
I invited the children in the yard to draw with leaves again with me today. It was quite a chilly morning out so I was unsure if any children were going to take me up on my offer. To my surprise, four children joined me. We talked about how we may best draw the leaf. Emily decided on tracing. “Im trying to see the leaf, now I am going to trace the leaf”- Emily. James informed me that he only wanted to draw yellow leaves. Emily was excited for when she gets to show her parents the leaves. Because it was such a cold morning, there was a small amount of ice that had formed on each table. After the paper had been on top of the ice for several minutes, sections became damp, causing it to rip easily and also pick up any dirt that was on the leaves. The possibility of the drawings being ruined was beginning to stress me out but I noticed that none of the children seemed to mind. The children’s outlook on the state of the paper calmed me and helped me to realize that the paper was simply showing evidence of being used, loved, and lived through .
Getting Into Routine
I started doing my drawings with the children regularly on every Thursday morning. I held a level of uncertainty while doing this as I just wasn’t sure if it would amount to anything or if it was benefitting the children in anyway. When I walked out to the yard on this particular morning, I was met with an exciting surprise. One of the children that had been participating each week ran up to me and asked me if it was “Leaf Time”. I wish I had a video of this moment. As usual I brought out the same supplies, pencils, leaves, and our special idea paper. We had a few new children join us today. It seemed as though some of my regular participants had done some recruiting! One child was apprehensive and informed me that she “only knew how to scribble”. I told her that this was no issue and that I was excited to see what ever she put down! One child asked me to show them how to trace a leaf, another child responded by offering their help instead. I was happy to be a witness. A few minutes later, we experimented with crumpling up the leaves in our hands to watch how they flew away in the wind.
Helping Hands
On this particular Thursday, I was greeted with some ready-to-help participants as soon as I stepped into the yard. Emily told me she was going to collect the leaves for us, while Ellie offered to carry the pencils for me. During our drawings, one child suggested that wrapping our pencils in leaves might help us draw them better. I followed their lead even though I didn’t really mind how well or unwell we were drawing.
Later, Lachlan piped in that he thought there were two thousand and one leaves in the yard. We started talking about where the leaves came from and what they could possibly be. A few of the children agreed that the leaves were babies while the others went to gather more leaves. Emily mentioned that babies need a mother. I asked if the mother was near. We decided to leave the tables and wander over to where the trees were in our yard, we stopped in front of our huge maple that was just outside the front doors. “THIS is the mother tree” Emily told me. We considered , for a second, why some leaves hadn’t fallen yet. We settled on thinking that she was keeping them safe until they were ready to be set free. We decided to spend some time with the Mother Tree before going inside.
