Fall Activities
Fall is in full swing around here, between the pumpkins creeping up on porches in my neighborhood to the bursts of red, yellow and orange everywhere I had to make a leaf rubbing craft. I have to be honest my son was only kinda into this craft. He liked doing the rubbing the first few times and then after that the only thing he wanted to do was be the tape guy! We often put a craft down and return to it at our leisure, or sometimes ditch it forever. Forcing kids to do art defeats the purpose no one is creative or learning when they are forced to do anything.
- Gather your materials. You will need a paper towel roll, some white paper, scissors, tape, crayons in fall colors with the paper removed and leaves from your garden.
- Start by going outside and finding some fun leaves , bringing them in and pat them dry if needed.
- Place the leaves vein side up under a piece of paper – for my son I taped the leaves onto a paper so they wouldn’t shift when he was trying to do the rubbing. This is where I lost him, after one exposure to the tape and well tape was all he wanted to do.
- Rub your crayons over the paper and watch the magic leaf appear! You can see I still had to hold his paper steady.
- Cut them out as you go.
- Time to tape. We used tape because it would be very tricky to glue with white glue and our glue stick was MIA. A glue stick would work nicely as long as you glued it horizontally and waited until it was dry to stand it up.
- Attach all the leaves and stand up!
Books About Leaves
Leaf Man 
Leaf Jumpers
Lucky Leaf
Need more leaf projects? It was my theme of the week over at Craftivity Corner my FamilyEducation.com blog !
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Need a fun art project for your older kids? This fall tree project is perfect. It’s somewhat time consuming for the careful or perfectionist child but dries quickly enough for those who are more impatient. Welcome fall into your house and or homeschool curriculum with this .
- Gather your materials. You will need a canvas, painters tape, a sponge paint brush and paint.
- Start by taping the tree form. I ripped my tape into strips for the branches.
- I also made falling and fallen leaves with tiny pieces.
- Press down hard so paint won’t seep under.
- Start painting. I used all different fall colors and blended them.
- Let dry
- Peel off the tape carefully.
Need a fall themed craft for a younger child? Try this Fall Leaves Craft
We made this apple wreath weeks ago but wanted to wait until people were settled in the school year and the leaves turned a little more before posting. Originally I planned this as a garland ( which is why there is no paper plate in the materials picture) but decided that a wreath would be nicer and my son could do more of the steps with me if it was a wreath. So grab an apple, some paint and make this fall decoration for your house today.
- Gather your materials. You will need an apple, a plate, some red and green paint, knife, craft paper , painters tape, scissors, glue and a paper plate.
- Before inviting your child to come paint cut a large piece of craft paper off a roll ( find them for cheap at walmart – in the office supply section) and tape it to your work surface with painters tape.
- Pour some red paint into the plate.
- Cut your apple lengthwise.
- Start printing!
If you have never done this with your child show them how to make a print by stamping and removing. If they just want to smear it that is fine too – you can just cut the smears into apple shapes if you want to make the wreath or just let them explore. My son did a little of both. - Next dip your child’s thumb or finger into the green paint to make stems.
- Let dry.
- Cut the apples out.
- Cut the middle of the paper plate out.
- Add glue to the ring of plate. Did you notice the new PJs? It’s the next day, when the apples dried my son was not interested in finishing the craft, so we waited until the next day. Don’t force them to finish ( I am preaching to myself here too
) keep it casual and fun.
- Add the apples!
Apple Picking!
I have more than a few apple picking field trips under my belt and you can too with this website that lists a wide range of pick your own farms in the US and around the globe.
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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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Tara Ziegmont is a mom of 1 and a teacher to many. You can catch up with Tara on her blog Feels Like Home !
I sent out a call for readers to send in their crafts, activities and book recommendations. I am struggling through bad morning sickness and just being a mom is wearing me out. But my readers have come to my rescue and I have been overwhelmed by the community that No Time For Flash Cards has become! This awesome acorn craft was sent in by Kim Young from Mom Tried It! A great blog you need to check out, thank you Kim it’s perfect!
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I try to encourage creativity with my children. Sometimes I find myself thinking in very uncreative ways to be creative. We love to do arts and crafts projects. I try to experiment and expose them to different mediums such as play-doh, flubber-style goo, moon sand, floam, etc. We paint on different objects as canvases such as balls, vegetables, windows, concrete, etc. While some of those things are kind of thinking outside the box, one thing remains constant. We use brushes, markers, crayons, etc. I have got to be more creative than this! So I introduce the acorn. You read that correctly, acorn. Today we are using plain old paper, ordinary paint, but we are using them with acorns. My son was a little taken aback by this. He wanted to use a brush, but after some coaxing he really got into it!
You will need a few acorns (with the tops taken off), 2 pieces of paper, scissors, paint, a plate, and tape.
Draw a picture of an acorn on a piece of paper. Make sure to leave space in between the top of the acorn and the acorn bottom. Next, cut out the design to make a stencil. To make this project easier for a preschooler, tape the blank paper to a placemat or table, then tape the stencil over the other piece of paper (also to the table or placemat). This will keep everything from moving and frustrating your little one.
Squeeze some paint onto a plate. I used red, yellow, orange, and brown for beautiful fall colors. Now let your child experiment with the parts of the acorn. You can suggest they use the pieces like stamps. After a few minutes of “stamping”, my son covered an entire acorn bottom with paint and rolled it across the paper. I didn’t think of that. Imaginations can run wild without ruining the picture. The stencil will ensure the picture looks like an acorn no matter how they paint it.
When you are all finished, simply take off the stencil and let it dry. While it is drying, you can read this great book about – what else – acorns.
Pay no attention to the date on the pictures. I forgot to reset it after I charged the battery. Oops.
Acorns Everywhere by Kevin Sherry
“Bonk! When an acorn hits him on the head, a chubby squirrel takes stock. And what does he see? ACORNS EVERYWHERE! With a jolt of hilarious manic energy, he gets to work—Gather! Dig! Bury! Readers will know, even if the squirrel doesn’t, that “gather” does not mean prying acorns from the mouth of a scandalized mouse, the beak of an unsuspecting bird, or . . . well, you’ll see. Will this squirrel get what’s coming to him—or will he get something even better?”
My son really liked this book and laughed along with it. It really showed him about hard work and doing it the right way.
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This post was written by Kim Young from Mom Tried It !
