I’m excited to try this new lesson out with my 5th graders soon (once they finish their “1 Point Perspective Cityscapes”)
These are my teacher examples. I knew I wanted to do a leaf lesson and was playing around with some different ideas recently
I was out on a nice walk today and collected some leaves to bring back home to test out some ideas.
I had a lot of fun creating and testing out a few options and really like this one! I did a bunch of black crayon rubbings of various leaves on 80# paper (I actually didn’t have anything else at home, but I think that 60# might be better to get more details within the leaves veins for this)
Then used watercolors to paint over them (I’m thinking kids will choose either a warm color palette or a cool color palette
Then on a sheet of 80# white drawing paper cut to 9×9” I did multiple leaf rubbings of the same leaf going in different directions and overlapping each time. I think this will allow for any minor movement and be a bit more forgiving since they’ll overlap anyhow.
Then once the painted leaves are dry, kids will carefully cut them out and then glue down on top of their 9×9” layered leaf rubbing. thinking about what they want their composition to be.
I’m thinking they can choose from 3-5 leaves to cut out and glue. I’d better get on it and start leaf collecting! I will have 4 classes of 5th graders- and will need to flatten them in a few books so they won’t be crinkly or curled!!
Im thinking (3) 40 minute classes for this. Day 1- leaf rubbing with black crayon. Day 2- paint the 3-5 leaves they rubbed. Day 3- cut out and glue. But possibly 2 days?? I don’t want to rush this process though. And I think collecting the leaves ahead of time and pressing them will help with the time frame of completing this. ( Plus the possibility of a bad weather day if I have kids go leaf hunting/ plus the possibility of chaos near the playground / on top of wet leaves being an issue! Haha!)
Please check out my previous posts if interested!
- ”Owls at Night”
- ”Art on a Cart” (that’s me haha!)
- ”Pumpkin’s Starry Night” (I added new photos to this one with an update on the progress!)
- I added a new page recently “Art Rules and Routines” as well as “Art on a Cart” in the drop down menu
- I’ll be posting more artwork on 4th grade this week!
- I’ll be posting finished artwork from 5th grade on “1 Point Perspective cityscapes” on Thursday evening 10/30/25 (I can’t wait to share finally!!!)
- And finally -Please visit my TpT store for 50% off on my NEW Victorian architecture PDF resource packet among other updates! (Link to my TpT store is in the drop down menu on the home page)
Also you can just type in any of the above blog post titles in my search bar and find them that way!
Thanks so much for visiting my site today and reading this! I hope you have a great night!