Today’s post is by Tara of Feels Like Home, Thanks Tara for such a fun fall kids  craft !

For weeks, Gracie has been asking me to make a duckie project. We didn’t have any feathers to make the duckie that Allie previously posted, so I had to make something up. Being that it’s fall on the east coast, we had lots of leaves to work with. I decided that we’d crumble the leaves and use them to cover our duckie. This craft goes together really quickly at the end, but it takes a little planning ahead.

1. Go outside and gather lots of leaves. We chose a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors. Of course, while we were outside, we talked about the different trees. We talked about why trees drop their leaves, and how they go to sleep over the winter. It was a lovely science lesson.

2. When you get back inside, spread the leaves out on newspaper to dry. Our leaves were quite wet because we gathered them in the morning, and they took most of a day to really dry out.

3. Gather the rest of your materials. You’ll need glue, a marker, a piece of construction paper, and a googly eye. We didn’t have a googly eye (a fact that distressed me slightly), so Grace and I raided my button bin for a suitable eye.

Finding an eye was another great lesson. We sorted the buttons into piles by shape – hearts, footballs, flowers, and circles. I didn’t initiate the sorting; I just followed Grace’s lead.

6. Once your materials are all ready, draw a duck on a piece of construction paper. I had a problem with this step. After drawing two mutant squash, I finally got something that resembled a bird. My husband thought it looked more like a turkey than a duck, but you can decide for yourself.

7. Allow your child to smear glue all over the bird, and then help her to tear or crumble the leaves to cover up the glue. While we were working, Grace squealed, This so messy Momma! in the middle of our project. And then she asked for more glue, so I’m pretty sure that messy was a good thing.

8. Make a beak for your bird using leaves or a scrap of construction paper. I found a cool orange leaf with pointy ends, and I cut off two of the points to use as a beak. I glued the beak on myself.

9. Find two leaf stems that you can use for bird legs. I asked Grace to put some glue on her ducky where his legs would go, and then handed her the legs to stick into the glue.

10. Ask your artist to put some glue on the bird where his eye belongs. Stick the button or googly eye into the glue. (finished turkey photo)

Grace thought that our duck needed some grass to hide in, so she glued a few leaves onto the paper around him.

11. I was going to cut the duck out and put him on a new piece of paper, but we would’ve lost the habitat Grace worked so hard on.

12. After your duck is dry, hang it on the wall.

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