Pile of Leaves

Have you ever had to do a leaf collection?

I used to assign that to each of my students

but then I realized there was a better way to do it.

I asked each of my students to collect a handful of leaves.

We got quite a nice variety:

 We sorted, classified, and organized all of the leaves in small groups.

Then I had the kids write facts about each of their categories.

The kids really enjoyed this task 

and they had great conversations about all the varieties of leaves.

Each group presented their sort to the class.

It was fun to see the creative categories that they came up with.