3 scraps of paper

The other day, Daughter came downstairs first thing in the morning and went straight to the family room for her art supplies. She came back into the kitchen (where I was slouched over my first sips of morning coffee), and presented me with 3 scraps of construction paper, green, orange, and yellow, which I had placed in her art bin the day before. (We are trying to focus on not wasting things these days.)

She asked me if she could use them, and then asked what we could make with them. I think I said the colors reminded me of the changing leaves, and we were off to the races!

I slurped a bit more coffee and started free-handing some leaf shapes on the scraps. Daughter got her scissors and began to cut. Before long we had dozens of little paper leaves.



I suggested we draw a tree trunk on construction paper and paste them on to make a fall tree decoration, but no, that was way too static an idea for Daughter. Over the course of the morning those paper leaves were petals thrown at a pretend wedding, leaves falling from trees, gifts for her brother, daddy, and me, and finally food for a bunny.



Bunny liked the green ones just fine.



But she liked the orange ones better.



Then Bunny got tired of eating one at a time and went for the whole plate.

I couldn't believe how much creative play we got out of 3 scraps of construction paper.