Fall Nature Walk

October 15, 2012 by

Inspired by the children’ books Leaf Man and Leaf Jumpers, we went on our first fall nature walk this year. Excited, the kids gathered their beach buckets and we headed down our neighborhood streets in search of fall artifacts. They picked up twigs, cones of various sizes and leaves of different colors and shapes. It was just a fun time of observing signs of autumn. As we walked, we had conversations about fall. Buddy saw a tree with leaves that hung down low, and he asked me if it’s a willow tree. It was neat to see them put their book knowledge into real life experiences. Below are some pictures of our walk and projects that we made with our findings. We tried to glue our leaf animals together, but that didn’t work because the leaves were all dried and uneven, so I told the kids that we’ll have the nice pictures for memory and they were all fine with that.

Buddy’s bird

Chicco’s trying to make a butterfly.

Mei’s butterfly that Buddy made for her.

Buddy asked for pipe cleaners for his pine cone spider.

If you’re interested in some great fall books for children, read 10 Fall Books for Children.

What fall activities does your family enjoy? Please share in the comments.

Filed Under: Crafts, Fall, Outdoor Activities Tagged With: ,

No-Carve Pumpkins

October 11, 2012 by

My three kids love crafts, so what better way to celebrate this pumpkin season with some fun pumpkin crafts. I bought some mini pumpkins and provided them with some craft material and here’s what we came up with.

Materials: Pipe cleaners, school glue, googly eyes, scraps of paper, strings, foam stickers or whatever leftover craft material you have at home will work.

I squeezed out some glue on a piece of scrap paper and using strips of scrap papers, they applied glue as they needed. Buddy cut out mouths and noses out of the green construction paper for everyone. But Mei decided to just glue googly eyes all over her pumpkin. Buddy added some arms to his pumpkin with pipe cleaners. The boys wanted some hair for their pumpkins, so I untwined some gardening strings and hot glued some hair for the boys. If you have never worked with a hot glue gun, it gets pretty hot, so please be careful when working with young children.

Here’s a little girl pumpkin that I made with googly eyes, black permanent marker for nose and mouth and gardening twine for braid.

Do you have a favorite craft for the fall season to share. Please post in the comment section.

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Fruit Stamping

September 26, 2012 by

I made some fruit stamping with my 2nd graders back when I taught public school. This is a fun way for them to learn about shapes and use their imagination on creating other shapes.

Today I tried it with my three kiddos since we have lots of fruits from our recent fruit picking outing. First, we just made geometric shapes, and then we used those shapes to make different designs like flowers and trees. It’s a little messy but sooo much fun! Just make sure everyone wears a smock. Here are the results:

The kids use a foam brush to get the paint on the fruits and to get the extra paint off the fruits as well.

These are flower designs made with pears, tomatoes, and mini bell peppers.

Geometric design on a small Gala apple.

Layered designs of pears, apples and peaches.

I drew the branches with black marker before stamping this purple pear tree.

Do you have fun activities or crafts that you have done with fruits? Share them in the comments section.

Filed Under: Crafts, Fall, Indoors Activities Tagged With:
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