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This Reading Mama

Making Leaf Place Mats

By thisreadingmama 7 Comments

Three years ago, ALuv (currently 7 years old) and I made leaf place mats together from the leaves in our yard.  Every year, when the leaves being to change color, he starts asking, “When are we going to make leaf place mats this year?”

Making Leaf Place Mats | This Reading Mama

This year was no different. But this time, I made it more of a challenge! He not only collected leaves from around our yard, but he had to identify the kind of leaf it was, labeling them on his place mat. And here’s how we did it:

Materials for Leaf Place Mats

  • contact paper (2 sheets per mat), you could also use wax paper
  • fall leaves
  • a Sharpie

Leaf Hunting

We collected as many different kinds of leaves as we could from around our yard.  If there are still leaves left on your trees, you could also do a natural leaf sort.  Then, we had to do some online research to make sure we had the correct names for our leaves.

Crafting the Leaf Place Mat

placing leaves on matWe laid the leaves out on the sticky side of the contact paper,

putting place mat together with contact papercovered it with the other sheet of contact paper,

labeling kinds of leavesthen got busy labeling each kind of leaf.  (All together, we had two kinds of maple, two kinds of oak, gum, dogwood, hickory, & poplar.)  This was a great way to sneak in some science, handwriting, and research…hehe.

tracing around leavesNJoy (currently 4 years old) wanted to make his own mat as well.  Once his mat was put together, he enjoyed tracing around his leaves and writing his name.  (You can also view how ALuv did this activity last year.)

leaf place mats on tableThe mats will last a good month (if they’re well taken care of) and they look so festive on our kitchen table

~Becky

 

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Filed Under: Handwriting Practice, Teaching Writing

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Comments

  1. Rebekah @ The Golden Gleam says

    October 30, 2012 at 9:43 pm

    Love this idea! We have a bunch of leaves just waiting for a fun craft like this!

    Reply
    • thisreadingmama says

      October 30, 2012 at 9:44 pm

      Go for it! 🙂

      Reply
  2. deborah says

    October 31, 2012 at 7:39 pm

    This is such a neat idea! How fun! I’m going to show my daughter-I think she’d love doing it!

    Reply
  3. Carolyn Hiatt says

    October 31, 2012 at 8:02 pm

    Becky, I so love your blog and I have shared many of your freebies with my staff. Keep writing!

    Reply
    • thisreadingmama says

      November 1, 2012 at 5:34 am

      Thank you, Carlolyn! That means A LOT coming from you. 🙂

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. 10 Fun Fall Crafts For Your Homeschool - for the family says:
    October 18, 2013 at 12:01 am

    […] doesn’t love fall leaves? Check out these Leaf Place Mats over at This Reading […]

    Reply
  2. Thanksgiving Table Decorations Kids Can Make says:
    November 4, 2014 at 6:02 am

    […] Leaf Place Mats – This Reading Mama […]

    Reply

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Hi! I’m Becky, a homeschooling mama with 4 blessings who keep me on my toes {and knees}. Before homeschooling, I was a classroom teacher (M.Ed.) and reading tutor. Read more about me here.

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