Craft Time – Fall Scenes

Have you seen those adorable felt fall-themed stickers at Target’s dollar spot?  I loved them, and knew I had to have them, but wasn’t sure what to do with them once I had them home. 

We did a fine motor activity with them, which you can see here.  And I thought about using them to make patterns, but patterns are so last year  to M right now. :)  (That’s not to say he has patterning down pat, just that he thinks he does.)

Last fall we made this fun hand and arm print tree with paint and a leaf stamp:      It was so much fun and turned out nicely too.

Instead of doing the exact same thing this year, I decided to let M and my niece S use these stickers and make something similar.

We started off with blue paper for the background, glue, a pencil, scissors, brown paper, the stickers, and oil pastels.

I traced each child’s hand and arm, then cut them out.  The kids really enjoyed this project.  M enjoyed it more with S around than I think he would’ve without her.  This was right up her alley, she’s a crafty little girl. :)

They glued the back of their cut outs and got busy making their fall scenes.

Here is M’s finished piece of work:
I thought I had a picture of my niece’s artwork, but can’t find it.  Too bad, it was pretty great. :)  It did kind of crack me up that they each put only one leaf per finger, um… branch, on their tree.  Not exactly what I had in mind, but it was their project!

I was a little disappointed that they didn’t use the oil pastels more on their scenes, pastels show up so nicely on dark paper.  Oh well, they definitely enjoyed using the “soft crayons” and used them to make loads of pictures on plain newsprint:This is my favorite of M’s pictures.  I love that he traced his own hand, and that’s a car in the center!  It’s pretty good, don’t you think?  I was kind of amazed that he could draw a car already.  HIs drawing skills have really taken off.  I love that the wheels have smiley faces! :)

Two of my niece’s pictures: Apparently she’s ready for Halloween. :)  I do believe that is a cemetery, complete with ghosts behind the headstones.

They really enjoyed drawing with the pastels – it’s a nice change from ordinary crayons!  If you have them, I encourage you to get them out and let your children experiment with using them.

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Preview of this Week’s Activities

Normally I write up my preschool posts a week later than when we actually did them; this means I won’t be posting the activities for this week until the end of the first week in November.  However, with Halloween coming up this weekend, I thought I’d go ahead and share some of the Pumpkin / Halloween activities that I have planned for this week in case they interest anyone else.  :) 

We don’t do a lot for Halloween.  We carve a jack-o-lantern and go trick or treating, and that’s it.  Neither my husband nor I are into all the scary, spooky, or dark stuff, and we don’t want M to be either, especially at his age.  But, hey, who doesn’t want free candy? ;) 

Some simple and fun shelf Halloween activities I’ve set out for M:

A jack-o-lantern “go fish” type game from the October issue of High Five:

A pumpkin shadow matching game: 

The Five Little Pumpkins poem and felt pieces for our flannel board:

Mr. Pumpkin Head. :)  This one is going to be so much fun!  I cut 4 different pumpkin shapes from orange construction paper, then found some Mr. Potato head pieces to cut out.  I used this page, as well as some I found on Google Images. 

Our leaf and pumpkin tic tac toe game.  I made this last year.  You can find the printable in this post.

Pumpkin Life Cycle cards, from Montessori for Everyone:

M will sequence these in order from seed to pumpkin, then check the answer card below to see if he is right.I think M will love these sequencing cards because he is really into this book:

At the end there is a much shorter version of the pumpkin life cycle and it’s his favorite part of the book! 

To see Halloween-themed activities we’ve done in the past, visit this post.

Everyone have a safe and Happy Halloween with your little ones! :)

Have a beautiful day! :)