Nature Rubbings

Nature Rubbings Activity

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Get Your Hands Dirty

Your preschooler won’t need a passport to go on this safari! All you need are paper, crayons and a nature trail or your back yard. As you walk, have her make rubbings that you label. She’ll be enjoying the outdoors and time with you while developing the power of observation, a fundamental skill she’ll need in the science classroom.

What You Need:

  • White paper
  • Dark crayons with the papers removed

What You Do:

  1. Gather everyone together for some time outdoors. Before you go into the yard or start walking the nature trail, explain that they are going on a safari. A safari is an expedition to observe or to hunt, and for this safari kids will be hunting for different textures. A texture is the feel or look of an item.
  2. Begin your exploration! Ask the children to describe what they see. Is the bark smooth or rough? Show them how to lay a sheet of paper on the side of a tree and make a rubbing with a piece of crayon. How is the texture of the bark reproduced in the rubbing?
  3. What else can you make a rubbing of? A stone? A leaf? How do these textures appear on the paper?
  4. Back at home, discuss the different textures. Which things were smooth? Which were rough?
  5. How would they group their rubbings? Let them take the lead. Discuss their choices. Do they group be texture, shape, or by type (tree, leaf, rock)?

Help your young explorers set up a nature exhibit to show other family members when they come home. You may want to have the kids enhance the outlines of some of the leaves by tracing them with marker.  

Updated on Jun 9, 2014
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