Posts Tagged ‘fall’

Here is a wonderfully easy and fun craft for your preschooler.  We used a ‘fake’ leaf, but you can go outside and pick up some leaves for your leaf person.  You can also use twigs for arms,

All you need is some glue, a leaf and your imagination.  Why not make a family made out of leaves!

Kids Craft: Fall Leaf Placemats

By: Rachel Paxton 

Making placemats from fall leaves is a fun activity for kids of all ages. Even toddlers will have fun collecting leaves and creating their own placemat. For this craft you will need:

Roll of contact paper
Fall leaves
Scissors

This activity is very inexpensive. The only item you will have to buy is the contact paper, and you can pick this up for about $5 a roll. One roll will make many placemats.

Have your kids go out in the yard and collect some fall leaves.  Have them look for a variety of colors and shapes. If the leaves are dry you can use them right away. If they are wet, let them set on a piece of newspaper to dry before you start the craft project.

Before you sit the kids down cut some pieces of contact paper into the shape of placemats. I used the width of the contact paper for the width of the placemat so I would only have to make one cut for each placemat. You will need two pieces of contact paper for each placemat. You can make the placemats any size you
choose.

After the contact paper is ready, sit your kids down at a table and have them spread out the leaves in the center of the table. 

Give them a piece of contact paper with the backing paper removed. Let them arrange their leaves on the sticky side of the paper. After they are happy with the arrangement of their leaves, take another piece of contact paper and carefully lay it on top of the leaves so that the sticky sides of both pieces of contact paper are together. Carefully use your hands to smooth out any bubbles or wrinkles. You won’t be able to get them all out, but don’t worry, a few wrinkles will not be noticeable when you are done. 

When you are finished you can use the scissors to trim around the edges to make sure they are all even and straight. This is an easy project that can be completed in about an hour. Remember
the younger the child, the shorter their attention span, so if you are making very many you may end up finishing them yourself! My toddler boys spent about 15 minutes on theirs and they had a
great time.

Don’t forget to proudly display your fall leaf placemats on your Thanksgiving table!

Article by:

Photos of fall leaf placemat project: www.crafty-moms.com/fall-leaf-placemat.shtml Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of four. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family memory-making activities, visit www.crafty-moms.com.

Here are some fun ways to keep entertained and learn as well.

I love the site First-School - Preschool Activities and Crafts.  It is full of printables from Alphabet to animals to holidays. (while the site is American there are still lots of good ideas).  It is an inspiring site to help parents do crafts, help them learn to print, colour and count.   I print a lot from this site for my preschooler and on a rainy day it helps us have a fun and adventurous day! 

On this first day of Fall check out some of our outdoor ideas.

• Go for a nature walk.  Collect red , orange & yellow leaves, twigs and more to create a collage. 
• Hopscotch - all you need it some sidewalk chalk and you are set.
• Raking leaves - let your preschooler help rake leaves (some stores have mini-rakes) or let them help you put the leaves into waste bags.  Keeping them busy in the garden is fun for them and allows you to get chores done.
• Tag or Hide and Seek - Why not teach your little one some games for outdoors.  They’ll learn valuable skills about how to play games, playing with others and more.  It’s also a great war to burn off steam