Fall Leaf Creations and Leaf Man Book Art Projects

• The book: Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert
• paper
• glue
• leaves in assorted shapes, colors, & sizes*
• crayons
• heavy books

*The teacher will have to prepare leaves ahead of time to ensure they are clean, flat, and ready to glue or include these preparation steps as part of the lesson. An alternative would be to print out digital, stock photos of leaves in a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors which would be easy to cut. The website Creativity Portal has great leaf templates.

• shape: the appearance of an object as defined by its outer surface or outline
• arrange: to put in an order

Students will create a composition by arranging leaves to form a person, animal, or creature. With crayons, they will create an environment or scene for their creation.

Read the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. Possible items to discuss with students might be:

• What is a leaf man?
• Do any of the leaves look familiar?
• What kind of leaves are they?
• Can they name the different animals and shapes they see throughout the story?

1. Lesson begins with the motivation.

2. Students are given leaves and are told to move them around, place them together, one on top of another, or behind each other to see what they can form. The teacher should view and offer suggestions where needed before students move on to gluing.

3. Once they are set, they should glue their leaves together to form their creature. After the glue is dry, they can put paper towels over the leaves, place a heavy book on top, and let the leaves get flat. (if necessary) Meanwhile, students can draw a background on construction paper where they will glue their leaf creation.

4. Once their background is complete, students can glue their creation to the construction paper.