Why I was laminating leaves this morning

I've made many activity boxes over the years for various children, and many of them are still in use with R. I'm also discovering that R. is moving beyond needing just matching and fine motor skills for school; she is becoming more interested in the world around her and how things work. (H. is also waking up to the wider world around her and asking many more questions about these same things. It just reinforces to me how very little children retain when they are under stress. H.'s stress level is much reduced these days [compared to when she joined our family eight years ago], and she is able to be far more curious.) This means that I've been rethinking our activity box situation. 

While many of our current boxes are still in use, there are some I just never use anymore because they are not needed. I am slowly going to transform them into more content-based boxes. I was inspired by seeing someone else making a fall leaf activity complete with corresponding book. This first helped me to figure out what I would do with the felt rain forest animals I had. I found a nice children's picture book about the rain forest which I read to R., talking about the pictures and what is going on, then I get out the felt set of rain forest animals so she can create her own rain forest scenes. She enjoyed that and it was right at her skill level, so I thought back to the autumn activity I had seen. I realized I could do the same type of thing with activity boxes for just about anything.

Deciding to start with seasons, I picked up a bunch of interesting leaves and things when we were in Michigan last month. Today, being on fall break, I finally got around to doing something with it all, which is why you would have found me laminating leaves this morning.



By laminating them, they will stay their color and also not start to dry out and break apart. 

Then into the box I added other things... sticks, acorns, and pine needles.



Look at the adorable little pinecones!

Finally I added in a piece of brown felt on which the child can make designs with all the things in the box.


As I'm planning more of these content-themed boxes, I will probably purchase a book or two to go with each of them, but for right now, we'll be using library books. It's helpful when I can text D. at work and ask him to grab me books one whatever subject I need.


I'm pretty pleased with it, and we'll start using it next week. I like how it combines a Five in a Row feel with self-contained activity boxes that I can just grab off the shelf right before school begins. (Because the reason I love activity boxes so much is that I have already done the thinking; everything is there and ready and I just have to take the box down from the shelf and open it.) I think both R. and H. will enjoy them.

I'm already planning what to put in the winter one. 

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