Fall Activities
Pine cone
Pumpkin
I had a grand idea and while it didn’t turn out the way I envisioned it was still fun to make with my son and I will share it here.
- Gather your materials. You will need pine cones, paint, a green pipe cleaner and a hot glue gun.
- Start by mixing red and yellow together to make orange paint. This craft uses a lot of paint so we took this opportunity to have a color lesson and my son loves to mix paint.
- My plan was to use a paint brush but my son found that rolling the pine cones was faster and better than a brush. So roll!
- Let the pine cones dry.
- This is the parent part of the craft, I used a ton of hot glue ! Lay out the first level and then glue together.
- Add another layer or two. filling in the gaps.
- When you are happy that it looks like a pumpkin twist the pipecleaner to look like a stem and glue it in.
- Try not to hurt your husband when you ask him if he knows what it is and he replies ” Cute Grapes!” .
It’s October so let’s get ready for Halloween! This easy bat craft for kids doubles as fun Halloween decor. For families that choose not to participate in Halloween this craft can still be useful, simply leave out the red fangs and change up the color scheme.- Gather your materials. You will need black, red and orange construction paper, glue, some crayons, scissors and googly eyes.
- Start by having your child draw a bunch of fun night time things on the orange paper, stars, a moon, even and owl would be great! If you can help or little one is still young, or skip it like we did. I added the stars etc… after we were done just for y’all.
- Trace your child’s hands on black paper.
- Have your child color the hands with a white crayon.
- While they are coloring draw a bat head Don’t worry about making mistakes we’ll use the opposite side.
and cut out small red fangs.
- Cut everything out.
- Put two globs of glue on your orange paper for the hands.
- Pop the hands on, don’t worry about what sides are up, one of ours is upside down , but make sure they meet in the middle .
- Add the head
- Glue on the fangs. I usually add the glue then help direct him where to put them, saying things like ” Can you point the triangle down” but if I wasn’t blogging it I wouldn’t be so concerned with how it “looks” . A good tip is to talk about what you are adding saying ” Fangs are big teeth, where should the bat’s teeth go” .
- Add the eyes! If your child is still eating things, you can draw eyes on with a white crayon instead.
Song!
5 little bats5 little bats went on a flight
by the light of the moon one night
Mama bat said squeak squeak squeak swack!
but only 4 little bats came back.
5 little bats5 little bats went on a flight
by the light of the moon one night
Mama bat said squeak squeak squeak swack!
but only 4 little bats came back.
4,3,2,1
No little bats went on a flight
by the light of the moon one night
Mama bat said squeak squeak squeak swack!
and 5 little bats came flying back!
Books!
“Stellaluna” by Janell Canon has long been a favorite when teaching about bats. I will warn you it’s a little long for fidgety toddlers but they will still enjoy it even if you skip a few pages. The story follows a little bat who looses her mother and is adopted into a family of birds. She never really feels like she belongs even though she is happy. and likes her bird family. That’s not the end though, there is a surprise reunion and Stellaluna saves the day before the end of this book!
“Where is Baby’s Pumpkin?”
“Where is Baby’s Pumpkin?”
by Karen Katz. This lift and flap book is the newest addition to our Karen Katz collection. My son adores these books. I read this in the check out line 3 times and he was asking for more before I could get my groceries in the fridge. I like this book because it’s a cute and gentle introduction to HalloweenBat and all the creatures that go along with it. Also there are fun textures to many of the illustrations which help keep little hands busy!
Adorable Acorn!
My love of all things autumn continues with this ripped paper acorn. This is a cute craft that can be adapted easily for various ages. We used markers but paint or crayons would work well too.
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 pieces of construction paper, a brown paper bag, a darker brown and light brown marker / crayon or paint, and glue.
- Have your child color half of the brown paper bag with the dark brown, then the other half with the lighter brown.
- While your child is coloring draw the outline of an acorn on a piece of construction paper.
- Start ripping.
Rip the colored paper bag into small pieces, keep the two colors in separate piles. Little ones may need help ripping the paper if it’s thick, I had to get the rips started for my son.
- Add the glue to the bottom half of the acorn. As you can see my little guy doesn’t always follow my directions!
- Glue on the ripped pieces.
- Repeat with the top half.
You want a lot of glue so that no matter where your child places the paper it will stick.
- Let dry
- Cut the acorn out and glue to the 2nd piece of construction paper.
Books!
” Leaf Jumpers “ by Carole Gerber is a beautifully illustrated , informative book that all all about leaves in autumn. It’s not the most exciting book but is a good teaching resource and tool when you are teaching your child about the changing seasons. I can’t say this is a must read, but it’s useful and worth a look at your local library.
” T is for Touchdown : A Football Alphabet” by Brad Herzog is a beautiful book that will delight even those of us who are never happy to see football season start. I admit even being an anti fan this book was fun and really full of information that even a football scrooge like myself can appreciate. Also it’s easy to read simply the letters and look at the pictures for little ones and has genuinely interesting blurbs for each page for older children.
” Every Season ” by Shelly Rotner is a keeper. The text is simple, but the pictures really capture all the wonderful things that each season brings to make up a whole year. The photographs can be used as ice breakers about things children love about each season, are looking forward to or even don’t like. Either way this book is full of possibilities.
Recycled crayons are fun to make and you don’t need any fancy molds for these! I decided to take advantage of the back to school prices on crayons and make a fun Halloween treat for my son, using recyclable juice boxes for a mold! Here is how I did it. Oh and you could do this technique with any colors . These chunky crayons are great for toddlers and who doesn’t need more stuff for their toddlers to do?
- Gather your materials. You will need crayons, some disposable tin foil muffin liners, a pan, some sparkles if desired , a juice box and your oven.
- Set your oven to 250 degrees or lower.
- Peel off any paper on the crayons you are using. I am using 6 orange and 3 black crayons.
- Break the crayons into smaller pieces and place them in the foil muffin liners- or a small over safe container you don’t mind getting wax all over.
- Pop them into your oven and watch carefully, they melt fast.
- Cut the top off the empty juice box.
- Once the wax is melted, pour one muffin liner full of orange wax into the juice box , put it in the fridge to solidify.
- If using sparkles pour them into the black wax now, stir and pop the pan back in the oven .
- When the wax is set in the juice box, repeat with the black wax, then the 2nd layer of orange.
- Let sit until completely dry.
- Cut the juice box and peel off the crayon.
- Color using this fun new crayon.
Naptime Creations
Fall Foam Magnets!
I LOVE FALL! I am so excited to get my pumpkin decorations out and I am already trying to figure out how to buy more without annoying my husband. So for this weeks Naptime Creation ( crafts for the school age crowd ) I decided to make some fall decorations that can be useful too!
- Gather your materials. You will need some foam sheets- they can be found at most big box stores, in multi packs or individually. A pen, glue, scissors, some glitter glue and magnetic strips.
- Decide what designs you want to make. I decided on a fall leaf, an apple, a jack o lantern and candy corn!
- For the leaf you will need to draw a leaf on one piece of foam.
Cut it out. Lay it on face down a second color of foam and outline it with room to spare so that color will stick out. Cut the second leaf out.
Glue the top on the bottom and add some gold glitter!
- For the Apple cut out a red apple shape , brown stem and green leaf.
Glue the stem on the back and the leaf on the front.
Let dry. - For the jack-0-lantern draw a pumpkin,
cut out, cut a small green stem 
and cut out three small black triangles, and a semi circle for the mouth. I cut the top with pinking shears for the zig zag . 
Glue together and add glitter to the eyes.
- For the candy corn, draw the whole shape of the candy corn in orange and cut out.
Next lay the orange on top of the yellow and trace only what you need and cut out. Repeat for the white layer. 
Glue them together. Beware since making this magnet I have been craving candy corn !
- Let everything dry until you can see no more white glue at all, then apply the magnet strip.
Even though this is for older children please make sure that if you have a little child in your house you use magnet pieces large enough not to be a big hazard. - Pop them on your fridge !
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