Nature Rubbings

Today we are going to talk about texture.

Texture is how an object feels, or how it looks like it might feel. All surfaces have texture!

Texture is mostly about our sense of touch. Or how our eyes see something and our brain thinks about how it will feel.

Walk around your house, or the room that you are in, and touch some different things. How do they feel? Are they:

smooth

rough

soft

bumpy

fluffy

grainy

hairy

prickly

fuzzy

The picture below is the trunk of a tree (Kentucky Coffee tree). What is the texture of the bark? If you touched it, do you think it would feel smooth? Fluffy? Rough?

When you think of a leaf, what do you think its texture is? You might think that it is smooth, but go outside and touch some and explore how different leaves might have different textures.

We are going to make some leaf rubbings!

First, gather your materials.

You will need:

• a piece of paper
• some leaves
• a crayon with the paper removed (a broken crayon words perfectly!)
• some tape
• a clipboard or a hard surface like a table (you will need to tape the leaves down. If you are using a table and you don't want to put tape on your table, then tape the leaves to a piece of paper

First, tape some leaves to your clipboard (or paper or table. I taped them with the bumpier side up.

Next, cover your leaves with a piece of paper. tape the paper down, or clip it to the clipboard.

Then, use the side of your crayon to rub across the paper, and your leaf will appear! Remember to use the whole side of the crayon, and not just the top, or you will just draw lines. We are rubbing, not drawing!

Finally, label your leaves with the kind of leaf they are.

You could also cut out around the edges of your leaf rubbing and then glue it onto card to make a card to send to someone.

The lines on the leaves are its veins. They are just like the veins inside of our bodies. They bring the water from the roots to the leaves. What is inside of your veins?

More texture!

You can make texture rubbings of many different things. Try wood (maybe on a fence or a deck) or you can try to do a rubbing of a tree trunk. Wood slices like we have at school make very cool rubbings. Try to keep your crayon on the paper and not on what you are doing a texture rubbing on. What about the sidewalk? What texture does it have? It is best to do rubbings on surfaces that are mostly flat. It is hard to do a texture rubbing of a ball!