Global leaf project

Today we went out and collected some phenomenally beautiful leaves from our playground for our Global Leaf Exchange project. We have received leaves from Texas, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Maine so far. 

As each new letter arrives, we have been locating the states on the map using clues such as: this state is east of Wisconsin or this state is in the north western United States. This has been a great way for us to prepare for our map unit later in the year. We also have been putting the leaves and letters from each class on a map in the hallway for all to enjoy. Check it out next time you're in the building.

After we came back in with our leaves, we used an app called Leaf Snap to identify the leaves we found. We had some glitches but for the most part we were able to find out what type of leaves we had found. The app also shows you what the bark of that tree looks like, the flowers and fruit. It was neat to see the kids make connections such as "oh... I have those helicopters in my yard" and then realize that the leaf that they were holding was from that tree.

Today we will be working on writing our letters to the other participating classes in the project, laminating our leaves, and stuffing our envelopes so we can send our leaves on a new journey across the United States