Leaf Rubbings

Let me explain to you a little bit about my neighborhood. I live in Campus Family Housing. In order to live in the two bedroom apartments you must have at least one child. All of the two bedroom apartments are in the same building condo style, so each apartment has an up and down stairs. There is a front step and a back porch. The porch sits on a big open courtyard facing another apartment building whose back porches also face the courtyard. Many of the families are not from the United States, but rather from Mexico, Turkey, Korea, China, Singapore, Argentina, South Africa, India, United Arab Emirates, and those are just the people I know. Most of the children are under the age of 10. What I'm trying to say is that our backyard is pretty much always one big gigantic multi-cultural playgroup that goes on for hours and hours. This means lots of fun for the kids all of the time. From time-to-time you might see a face of a neighbor, particularly the neighbor girls who love to do arts and crafts even when my two kids are not interested. Yesterday we were outside coloring with our very sweet neighbor. She loves to do crafts of all kinds. I love it when Eli and Sadie play with her because she is patient, kind and very creative with her play. She also loves to collect. She just happened to be collecting leaves and we just happened to have a box of crayons sitting outside, so we had an impromptu leaf rubbing activity. I haven't rubbed leaves for such a long time, I forgot how satisfying it is to see your leaf appear all magic-like in a matter of seconds.Materials:

• paper
• crayons with paper removed
• leaves

Directions:

Place a leaf on a hard, flat surface with the bumpiest side of the leaf facing up. Place a piece of paper over the leaf. With the crayon laying flat against the paper, rub the paper using a good amount of pressure. Voila! Your leaf will magically appear on your paper.