Since taking over the photography program at the high school I teach at, I think I'll start them off with "Gumgrams"... I made this one at school just to make sure that it can be done. There's a big old vacuum exposure table that hasn't been used for years. The cheapy paper worked well!
At first I was shocked that you brought that plant to school, Japanese Maple leaves look similar to another plant. I may have taken the other plant to school a few times but I wouldn’t let the teachers see it. I do remember doing photograms in high school photography class.