Make a leaf spotting wheel

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
• Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Planning this activity

• Make sure the outdoor area you visit is accessible for everyone, choosing a suitable place for drop off and collection. You may need to think about avoiding steps or steep gradients or including frequent breaks. 
• Check the forecast and sunset times, but be prepared for the weather to change. It’s best to run this activity on lighter evenings, such as in summer.
• Make sure everyone knows where and when to meet, knows what to bring and comes dressed for the weather and the task. People should wear outdoor clothing and sturdy shoes. 
• It might be a good idea to have some spare equipment, such as gardening gloves, for those who’d prefer not to get their hands too dirty. Make sure there’s somewhere everyone can wash their hands after the activity too.
• Find a wood that has a variety of trees – try to make sure that there are at least some trees that are on the leaf spotter sheet.
• Print enough copies of the Leaf hunt sheet, so that each group has one between them. Alternatively, find or make your own sheets, or use an app such as the Woodland Trust Tree ID app.

Get ready to search

1. Everyone should get into small groups, with an adult or young leader in each group.
2. Give each group a copy of the 'Leaf hunt' sheet, which will make it easier to spot the leaves.
3. Each group should look at the sheet, and talk about the shapes of the leaves and the names of the trees they belong to.
4. Ask people to look at how the leaves are different shapes, colours and textures. People could also look at the veins and markings visible on the leaves. Some are single leaves, such as oak leaves, while some are multiple, such as rowan leaves too.
5. Ask everyone how they can tell leaves apart. 
6. Remind everyone not to pick any leaves, as the trees need them, but to pick them up off the ground. 

Make a leaf spotting wheel

1. Give everyone a paper plate and ask people to divide into equal segments. You can use a ruler and pen to help divide it into 4, 8 or more segments. 
2. Each person should then take a peg for each segment and peg it onto the plate.
3. In each segment, people should write down the name of a leaf from the leaf spotting sheet. They’ll be looking for those leaves, then pegging them to the plate when they’ve found them.
4. To make it easier, people could also colour each segment a different autumnal (such as orange, yellow and brown) or green colour, rather than writing the name of a leaf. They’ll be pegging a leaf of the same colour to the plate when they’ve found them

Explore the wood

1. Each group should explore the wood and try to spot all of the leaves or colour on their plate to help them. They can use ‘Leaf hunt’ sheet to help them.
2. When a group finds a leaf or matching colour, they should peg it to the plate. 
3. Next, take time to look at the tree it’s growing on. They could look at whether the tree is on its own or in a group, how tall it is, what the bark is like, or whether the tree is in the sun or the shade.
4. Everyone should think about how they’d recognise this tree or leaf again without any help.

Play a quick leaf matching game

1. Once a group has pegged all the leaves to the plate, gather everyone together and play a game.
2. An adult should call out the name of a tree, and everyone should run to stand by it.
3. The adult should make sure they can see the tree they call, and everyone should remember not to run out of sight.
4. Groups should keep playing, as their adult calls out different trees.
5. If the group is struggling, they could give clues, for example, ‘an oak tree, the tree that also makes acorns’ or ‘a holly bush, that has prickly leaves that remind us of Christmas’.