Preschool Art Made from Scavenged Natural Items

Aug 17, 2011
Nicole Fravel

Preschoolers Playing with Pinecones - Photo by Nicole Fravel

Searching for something to do with all of the leaves, flowers, and other treasures your child collects outdoors? Use them to create one of a kind artwork.

Preschoolers love to collect things. Take a hike with a preschooler, and their pockets (and yours!) will soon be filled with various treasures – leaves, twigs, rocks, seeds. Instead of slyly tossing the collected items when you return home from your journey, use them for crafts inspired by nature.

Create a Nature Collage

Have your child use a paintbrush to spread glue over the entire surface of a sheet of construction paper. Let your child arrange some or all of his or her found items on the paper. When the glue dries, cover the artwork with transparent contact paper to keep it forever.

Make a Sun Print

Early in the morning on a sunny day, help your child arrange opaque objects, such as the ones collected for the nature collage, on a sheet of colored construction paper. Late in the afternoon, remove the objects to reveal a print. The sun will have faded the exposed construction paper, but the paper that was beneath the objects will still be its original color – showing the shapes of the objects that were used for the artwork.

Mold a Clay Sculpture

Let your child create a free-form shape out of a fist-sized bit of clay. He or she can add rocks, twigs, flowers, and leaves to the sculpture by pressing them into the clay. If you would like to have a permanent piece of art, use only rocks, twigs, and shells (or press dry the flowers and leaves beforehand) and allow the creation to dry for a day or two.

Another option is to use the clay as a base for more printmaking activities. Your child can flatten the clay into a pancake shape and then press the found objects onto the clay to transfer their textures and shapes. You may want to have your child feel the printed designs and compare them to the feel of the actual object.

Paint with Nature

Provide your child with a shallow tray of paint. Have him or her dip, roll, or drop one of the collected treasures into the paint. Encourage your child to dab, drag, roll, and press the items onto paper to discover the many different kinds of marks that can be made with a single object. Your child can experiment with different objects and compare and contrast their prints.

Make Texture Rubbings

Place one leaf, flower, or small rock under a sheet of paper. (Sometimes it helps to tape the item to a flat, hard surface, so that it does not roll while your child is making a rubbing.) Show your child how to rub the side of the crayon back and forth over the paper make a print of the object underneath.

Start a Nature Journal

Help your child choose one or two of the most interesting objects. Use tape, glue, or contact paper to attach them to a sheet of paper. Then, help your child create a caption that explains why the object interests them, where it was found, information about the object gleaned from a book or website, or whatever else he or she wants to remember. Be sure to add the date it was found.

You can make a tradition of saving at least one treasure from every hike, vacation, or outdoor adventure you have. Keep all the pages in a folder or bind them together to make a book celebrating your time together exploring nature.

Press Flowers

Press leaves and flowers in wax paper between two pages of a heavy book. Leave them alone for about one week. When the flowers are dried, use them to adorn greeting cards or bookmarks. If you want your child’s project to last longer, you may take it to a copier to laminate.

No matter what project you and your child choose to create from the collected treasures, you will have created a memory of your time exploring nature together. Your child may even develop a new appreciation for the art of nature and search for specific colors, shapes, or textures on your next hike into the forest (or backyard).