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Smarts & Crafts: 3 Fall Crafts for Preschoolers
- Gabrielle Fischer Posted On Sep 8, 2017 | STEM
It’s almost fall! You’re probably spending a little less time swimming, climbing, and playing outside and a little more time relaxing indoors – the perfect place for fall craft projects with your preschooler! Luckily, fall is ripe with inspiration for preschool crafts, like the three we’ve chosen below. So pour some cider, have a seat, and let’s get crafty!
Turning Leaf Scratchers
With less sun and shorter days, autumn weather suppresses chlorophyll production in many leaves, allowing their beautiful orange, red, and yellow colors to shine through. Demonstrate this process with a fun leaf scratcher!
- Cut a large leaf shape out of a piece of card stock or other sturdy paper. You can find lots of printable templates online, if you need one.
- Have your kids cover the leaf in red, yellow, or orange crayon (or all three), making sure to leave a thick layer of color over the entire leaf.
- Next, have the kids cover their leaves in a layer of green crayon.
- Using a penny (keep a careful eye on very small children), scratch off the layer of green to reveal the beautiful fall colors beneath.
Click for a simple explanation about why leaves change color in the fall!
Fall Foil Trees
Continue the foliage fun with a painting project depicting all the beautiful colors of leaves in the fall.
- Let your kids scrunch three pieces of tinfoil into loose balls.
- Squeeze blobs of orange, yellow, and red paint on three, separate paper plates.
- Instruct your kids to dip their foil into one color of paint paint, then press onto a sheet of paper several times to make their “leaves”.
- Repeat, printing the foil in different colors on top of the original colors and in different places on the paper.
- When your foil prints are dry, use brown paint to fingerpaint a trunk and branches into your fall forest.
Don’t forget to print some fall foil leaves at the bottom of your page – as chlorophyll production decreases, the stems of leaves weaken, and the leaves fall from the trees!
Paper Plate Spider Webs
Fall trees aren’t just full of leaves – they’re also full of spiders! Garden spiders are most active in the fall so you’re likely to see more of their elaborate, beautiful webs in the trees in autumn, too. Join the fun and spin your own spider webs out of a paper plate!
- Cut the center out of a paper plate.
- Let your kids color the outer edge of the plate with beautiful fall colors like red, orange, and yellow.
- Using a single hole puncher, punch 12-14 holes around the edge of the hole.
- Tape one end of a length of yarn to the back of the paper plate and wrap tape tightly around the other to form a ‘needle’.
- Demonstrate how to weave the yarn back and forth through the holes to create the web, then hand the plate over to your child.
- Once, the web is spun, remove the pin from the end of the yarn and tape that end to the back of the plate, too.
Add a pipe cleaner spider for the perfect fall finishing touch – cut four black pipe cleaners in half and twist to create an eight-legged creepy crawly!
Fall is chock full of fun craft ideas and it’s so easy to slip just a bit of learning into the fun!
DIY Fall Sensory Bin!
Fall is here! Which means I get to put together one of my most favorite sensory bins of the year. Who can resist the smell of apple cinnamon and pine cones mixed with the texture of corn kernels, right!?
Every year I try to add in components that align with the developmental stage my daughter is in. Being almost 3, she is refining her fine and visual motor skills every day, so we added in lots of fine motor challenges and visual perceptual options this year. Toddlers also seek independence in everything they do, so sensory bins are always a great task to get them involved when putting it together.
Sensory Bin Materials
First, we gathered all of our goodies. For this bin, we are using corn kernels, play apples, pine cones, flat marbles, and play leaves as our main “ingredients”. You can control the amount of scent you include in your bin by sprinkling apple pie spice, or adding cinnamon sticks. My daughter does not have any aversions to scent, so we went with pre-scented apples and pine cones (you can often find these in the fall section of your local craft store!).
Next, I had her scoop and pour the corn kernels into her bin, and add in all of the goodies. I let her play for a while and explore the different scents and textures. She loves to explore using kitchen utensils (spoons, bowls, funnels, cups, etc) – she made our whole family some apple soup with a side of leaves and pine cones for dinner! All of this is working on their imagination skills which is fantastic for this age.
Then, the fun begins for me! Here are some fun challenges I incorporated into our purposeful play!
Fine Motor
Corn kernels are awesome because when a toddler plays with it, they are naturally practicing their pincer skills just picking them up and moving them around! I also love to incorporate various tongs, tweezers, and clothespins for her to use while she picks up apples or “catches” leaves.
Visual Motor
Sorting tasks are always a big hit. I had her sort out red apples, green apples, yellow leaves, and green leaves. You can also work on patterning or visual model copying. For my daughter, I lined up a couple objects (red apple, green leaf, pine cone) and had her find the matching objects in the bin and line them up in the same order.
Stereognosis
This is a high-level perceptual skill that I love to throw in when planning activities. Stereognosis is the ability to perceive an object from touch – sensory bins are perfect for this because you can hide a pine cone underneath the corn kernels, have them dig in, and see if they can find the pine cone only by touch. I can’t tell you how intrinsically motivating and fun this is for them, all while working on some amazing developmental skills.
The thing I really love about sensory bins is that they are easily adaptable to any age group. If your little one is younger, try adding the corn kernels to a clear bottle with some leaves and pom poms and have them roll it all around. Watch them in awe as they see the goodies move all around inside the bottle and hear the sounds of the kernels as they slide!
Save it for later!
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Celebrate Astronomy Day with Kids
Each year Astronomy Day is celebrated worldwide. The stars have fascinated humanity for literally centuries, and even to this day captures the imagination of kids of all ages. Celebrate this event with them this year and don't worry if you don't own any expensive telescopes. These DIY activities use real life discoveries to inspire your little astronomers!
Track the Phases of the Moon
Bone sticks from across Europe and Africa dating back as long ago as 35,000 BCE that tracked the moon’s phases. Use a simple number line with your kids to track the phases of the moon over the course of a month, from full moon and back again. Do it for several months and see what patterns they begin to observe.
Depict a Celestial Phenomenon
A celestial phenomenon is a astrological event that involves one or more objects. The earliest example depicted was discovered in Germany in 1999. The Nebra Sky Disc dates back to 2000 BC and it depicted a star cluster, phases of the moon and the rising sun.
Use a black paper plate, or even just black paper, and encourage your children to depict their own star formations. If they can’t stay up to observe them at night, project some indoors with this Shining Stars Projector.
Astronomy to Keep Time
The Chinese astronomers kept detailed observations beginning about 600 BC, for the primary purpose of timekeeping. Their records allowed them to predict eclipses, and include the first record of events such as supernovas and comets.
On the other side of the world, the Mayans developed their own astronomical tables for predicting the phases of the moon, eclipses, and the appearance of the other planets. They used these and the cycles of the Sun, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and constellations to establish the Mayan calendar.
All of the above astronomy was without a telescope, and you can still observe these astronomical events with your kids today. Check out this astronomy calendar and pick a full moon, eclipse, planetary event, or meteor shower to observe as a family.
Try this simple astronomy experiment to help kids as young as preschoolers understand what makes night.
Just because ancient astronomers did all of this without a telescope doesn't mean your little ones have to! All of the above activities can be done with the naked eye but if you feel like shooting for the stars check out Learning Resources Big View Telescope. How will you celebrate Astronomy Day?
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