Leaf Toss Game

Gather the most beautiful leaves you can find, and arrange them in a circle. Choose a child to be the leader. He or she moves to the center of the circle. The others form a circle outside the leaves. The leader picks up a leaf and asks the child nearest to it: “What do you see as you fall from your tree?” The leader then tosses the leaf as high in the air as possible. Before the leaf hits the ground, the child must give an answer that rhymes with tree. For example: “I see a bee as I fall from my tree.” The leader then asks the child clockwise from the first the same question. After the leader tosses the leaf, this child must repeat the first answer and add a rhyming word before the leaf hits the ground. For example, “I see a bee and the sea as I fall from my tree,” and so on. The first child who forgets or mixes up past rhymes, can’t think of a new one, or fails to finish before the leaf hits the ground becomes the new leader. The game starts over with a new rhyming word. For example: “What do you spy as you fall from the sky?” The child clockwise from the last player must give an answer that rhymes with sky, and so on.

Illustrated by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki