leaf animal alphabet

1. First

Earlier this Fall we read the alphabet book Art from Nature by Chris Gluck, a local artist. We noticed that Chris Gluck had directions in the back of her book for how to make your own leaf animals. We thought that we could make a leaf animal alphabet book, too!

The children collected colorful leaves to press. This was a rich opportunity for making connections to other learning. We connected our work counting 5 and 10 objects to collecting leaves in groups of 5 or 10. We then sorted our leaves by a noticeable attribute (color) and counted how many of each color we collected. We recorded how many and compared groups using the words most, least and equal. Collecting leaves for our leaf animals connected to essential math standards!

You can see pictures from our blog post sharing the first part of our process here.

2. Next

During Fundations and our hikes we have been generating lists of words that begin with the same sound. We have been doing this work using the letters that we've learned. For our leaf alphabet book we needed to think of an animal or creature for every letter. We haven't learned every letter sound during Fundations yet, but the children were eager to take on the challenge.

Wait, how many letters in our alphabet?

The children had many strategies for figuring this out. They used their fingers, they tried to say the alphabet and keep track, and they looked around the room. A child suggested we go back to Chris Gluck's book for help. We figured out that we would need 26 animals, because we have 26 letters in our alphabet. Chris Gluck is an artist and an alphabet expert.

We took our time and noticed that vowels can be challenging, because they can make different sounds. We consulted Chris Gluck for some ideas, such as unicorn fish, because we couldn't think of any animals that begin with the short u sound. This year children will be learning letter sounds and how sounds can change when letters get together. This initial exposure starts the learning and conversation that we will have throughout the year as children are growing as readers and writers.

The children thought of many interesting animals using beginning letter sounds on their own. When we were getting our mouths ready for the v sound, Nella said vulture and Oliver said viperfish! 

3. Then

Once we had our list of animals I used small drawings of the animals to help the children make their choices. We collected nonfiction books about each of their animals. They practiced reading and rereading their new nonfiction book during reading workshop. We are reading learn about the world books during reading workshop and the children were able to practice rereading a book to help them learn about their animal.

Using a page from their teaching book, they practiced drawing their animal. Just like readers reread, artists redraw. They practiced drawing their animal two or three times. We talked about how our drawings changed. We noticed that we can learn more from rereading and we can learn more from practicing and drawing again! 

Emerson was so proud of the progression of his drawing, he eagerly shared his drafts with his peers. When he shared his third drawing of a lion with his audience, Beckett fell back, because Emerson's third lion looked so real!

This was one of the most powerful experiences I have ever been part of in a Kindergarten classroom. All of the children were engaged and empowered. They eagerly practiced drawing again and again. We talked about lines and shapes, we talked about adding more detail, and we talked about how when we add more detail it helps to bring our drawings to life- like Emerson's lion.

4. And then

On Friday morning the children drew their animal one more time on special art paper. They carefully cut from their own collection of pressed leaves. They glued their leaves to their drawing, using their lines to guide their leaf collage. At one moment, I had to pause and look around the room, children were so careful and invested in their work. They used yellow leaves to show the yellow legs on their bird or brown leaves to show the fur on their mouse. This was also a great challenge. Chris Gluck was our inspiration, but each child created their leaf animal in a unique way. Some filled their animal with leaves while others used only a few leaves to show feathers or fur. 

Next week we will add our final detail using black pens. The children will draw the eyes and fur detail that they want to include and write the name of their animal. I believe the eyes will really help to bring their leaf collages to life. We will publish our alphabet book through the blog and every child will have a copy to bring home!

Here is a small collection of their leaf animals; an elephant, jaguar, and yellow legs.