Fall Color Walk with Printable Color Cards

Fall Color Walk

Inside Preparation Work:

• Read in the Handbook of Nature Study page 14, “The Field Excursion”. The reason I want you to read this section is so you have a better understanding of how to prepare you children for a short outdoor excursion with a purpose. Let them know ahead of time the reason you are going outdoors, have them gather their supplies, and then make the excursion outside to look for fall colors.
• You can view this video on YouTube: Why Leaves Change Color.
• Make sure you have several shades of fall colors in your colored pencil collection: reds, yellows, greens, oranges.
• You can also use the Nature Study Grid from the printable Fall Leaf Grid to enhance your Fall Color Walk and leaf observation.

Outdoor Hour Time:

• Spend some of your Outdoor Hour time looking for fall colors in your own backyard. If your children are older, have them choose carefully their colors. Not all greens are the same. Not all yellows are the same. Try to match your colors by choosing your colored pencils to match as best you can.
• Gather several leaves to collect for leaf study. You may with to press these so they will not be dried before you can examine them. You can watch my YouTube video to see how to do this with simple household resources. All of the leaf rubbing steps and videos are collected HERE.
• If your children are very young, just point out the fall colors or you can use Monica’s idea and print out our color word cards (included below).
• Advanced Study: Take your watercolors outdoors along with your brushes and pad. Use watercolors to make a record of your fall scene. Look for complementary colors: yellow leaves and blue sky, red berries and evergreens, etc. Capture autumn color in your local area….make the painting show the mood of the change of season.

Follow-Up Activities:

• If you didn’t complete the Fall Color Walk notebook page (ebook users only) during your outdoor time, you can complete it now. An alternate follow-up activity could be to make a list of all the colors you saw and record them in your nature journal or to use the Hearts and Trees Advanced Fall Color Activity.
• Advanced Follow-Up: Read these websites: The Chemistry of Autumn Leaf Colors. And The Chemistry of Autumn Colors. Write a summary narration for your nature journal.
• Advanced Follow-Up: Complete the Upper Level notebook page included with the Autumn ebook curriculum.