Silver Maple in the Moonlight

Maple trees as a nature study has to be about the easiest thing in the world to locate… at least in these parts! It has been a crazy hectic week and kinda yucky weather but fortunately we can see at least three maples out of every window in the house. We identified 4 different species on our evening walk last night including Silver Maple (tons in our yard and they drop seeds like rain in the spring), Sugar Maple, one that I think is a Black Maple and then some ornamental, non-native Amur Maple bushes. There is one more that I haven’t successfully IDed yet. We didn’t do a formal Nature Journal entry but instead played with different ways to capture the image of the leaf. We did Paint Spraying, Rubbings and Prints. We also made some cool Leaf T-shirts this past spring by making freezer paper stencils from real leaves (fun activity to try).

For our Paint Spray Images, we filled a squirt bottle with water and food coloring. We laid different leaves on a sheet of drawing paper (we were all out of water color paper, which is what I would recommend) and then squirted away. You don’t want it to get too wet or get the squirt bottle too close. We did this one outside.

We did some classic leaf rubbings using our homemade crayon blocks. For the girls, I taped the leaf to the table and then taped the paper down on top of it so it didn’t move around for them. That really helped a lot!

To make our leaf prints we covered the back side of a leaf with water color paints and then pressed it down on the sheet of paper. The Silver Maple Leaves looked really cool with this technique. Camp Creek Press had a nice blog about Water Color Nature Prints.

For our extra credit… of course we had real Maple Syrup. Waffles are the favorite for breakfast here. Do we get double points for having watched the syrup being made this spring? 😉 If you haven’t experienced Sugaring here are a couple photos. Unfortunately there is no way to share the wonderful smell of the sap boiling down over a fire, the sound of the crunch of icy snow underfoot, the feeling of the biting cold on your nose and the general excitement of the woods starting to stir again after a long winter.

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