We’ve been enjoying several fall-related books from the library lately.
One of our favorites has been A Friend for All Seasons
A Friend for All Seasons tells the story of a little raccoon who lives in an Oak tree. When its leaves start to fall he thinks it may be sad or cold, and then his mom explains about the seasons.
I thought it was the perfect book to inspire some leaf activities!
First we took a walk and collected some leaves of our own. In scavenger hunt style I asked the kids to each try to find a red leaf, a small leaf, a big leaf, etc. They had fun adding their leaves to our collection bag.
Once we got home with our leaves, we sorted them.
After sorting our leaves, I showed the kids how to make leaf rubbings. (With younger kids you may need to hold the paper down for them so it doesn’t move around too much.) They were excited to see their leaves “magically” appear on the paper!
Finally, we used our leaves to make some fall trees of our own. First they each drew a tree and used a paint brush to add glue where they wanted their leaves to stick. Then the kids had fun crumbling the dried leaves into a bowl (pick out any large stems!) and sprinkling them like glitter onto the glue.
Looking for another preschool book about fall? Check out our activities for Hello, Squirrels!
What activities have you done with the fall leaves?
Robin says
Thanks for reminding me of the leaf rubbings. We are going to do that TODAY!
Jamie@SouthMainMuse says
I remember making the leaf rubbings as a child but making the trees using the crumbled leaves is new to me. That looks really cool.
OneMommy says
As soon as I mentioned we were doing it like glitter, my daughter was all for it!
Donna DM Yates says
So cute and creative again! What I did was trace a leaf on paper, cut it out and used it as a template on felt. I glued two different colored felts together to make a table fall decoration.
OneMommy says
I like that idea! It would certainly be a simple decoration for Thanksgiving!
Renée says
Great ideas! When my kids were little, one of our favorite leaf activities was always making leaf-print bowls. You can do this with oven-hardening clay, or salt dough. Just press the leaf into clay, cut around it, peel off the leaf, bring the edges up a little to make a bowlish shape, and harden.
OneMommy says
That sounds like a lot of fun! We might have to try that when they get a little older… I’m pretty sure my youngest would get frustrated.
What Do We Do All Day? says
Ah! I had to do a math problem for spam control! I sort of felt it was challenging. That’s sort of sad. Anyway, thanks for linking up to The Children’s Bookshelf.
OneMommy says
LOL — that spam plugin gets more comments!
Thanks for hosting The Children’s Bookshelf!
Jackie@My Little Bookcase says
Your rubbings look beautiful.
JDaniel4's Mom says
What pretty artwork! I love your leaf rubbings. Thank you so much for linking to Read.Explore.Learn. I will be sharing this post on the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page today!
OneMommy says
Thanks — it’s been a while since I’ve done leaf rubbings, almost forgot which way to turn the leaves to make it work the best!
OneMommy says
I think that is one of my favorite things to do with them — find activities to go with a book we’ve been reading.
Tina says
This looks like so much fun! And the book looks like a winner too. Thanks so much for sharing it at Booknificent Thursday!
Tina