Natural Materials are so open-ended they can be used for a variety of purposes and they inspire all sorts of play. This time of year, some of us are seeing a rainbow of colors in nature. Now is the perfect time to gather leaves from your neighborhood or school for sorting, classifying and counting.
Sorting is a skill that children must practice so they learn to identify similarities and differences between materials. Color is one of the first ways children sort.
Playful invitation:
Prepare: Gather sorting containers, colorful paper and fall leaves.
Use the Invitation to Play Documentation Tool to collect data.
Invite: Look at these incredible leaves! Show me how you match the leaves with these colors?
Play: Watch how the child investigates the leaves. If they are beginning sorters, you may want to talk aloud as you model the process. Make comments like, “Oh this one is yellow so I’ll put it here, on the yellow. And this one is green, but it’s a dark green, so it goes here.”
Continue to sort until each color has a few leaves.
At first you may begin sorting using different colors and then progress to sorting shades of one color. Inspection of leaves increases when the child must match a brown leaf to varying shades of brown.
Reflect and Assess: Was the child able to match leaves to a color? How quickly did they work? If this was too easy how might you challenge the child to sort in other ways? For example, take away the colors and see if the child can sort by shape of the leaf?
Extend:
Count the quantity of each color. Compare. Which has the most? Which has the fewest?
Does this inspire you to look for colorful trees as you walk or drive through your community? Make connections and have conversations, What color trees grow by your home and school?