Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf

Of all the leaves in the world, I think maple leaves are our favorites!
Today, we read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert.  It is the story of a boy and his favorite maple tree. After reading the story, we made salt dough maple leaves.  We always use a very simple recipe. 

4 cups flour
1 cup salt
​1 1/2 cups water

We mixed up all the ingredients in a big bowl.  Then, we spent some time kneading the dough with our hands until it came together and was no longer lumpy, but smooth.  Then we just rolled it out and used a maple leaf-shaped cookie cutter to cut the dough.  We lined the leaves up on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven at 250 degrees for 3-4 hours.  After the leaves cooled, we used acrylic paint and glitter to decorate.