Have your children collect 3-4 interesting fall leaves. Help
each child roll pieces of tape and place them under the leaves
to secure them to a flat surface. Next, give them a piece
of paper to lay on top of the leaves. Give your children crayons
that have had their paper removed. Next, show them how to
lay a crayon sideways and rub it across the paper. Encourage
your children to experiment with using different colors of
crayons and occasionally moving the leaves to different positions.
NOTE: If the leaves your children find are not flat, have
them lay the leaves on a table and place some heavy books
on top of them for a while to flatten.
Have your children glue a large leaf on a piece of paper. Then
with a black pen, have them draw on a head, two arms and two
legs. Next have them glue a small leaf on for hands and feet
and one for a hat.
You can make beautiful leaf prints with leaves and some tempera
paint. Have your children lay 2-3 leaves on a piece of newspaper.
Next, have them paint each leaf (the same or each a different
color). Carefully, help each child to move the leaves to a clean
piece of newspaper. Next, have them lay a clean piece of white
paper on top of the leaves and gently rub across the top of
the paper. When they lift off the white paper, they will find
a beautiful print of the leaves underneath.
Give each child a paper plate. Have them draw on facial features
with crayons. Then have them glue small leaves on the top of
the plate for hair.
One of my nicest cooperative room displays with young children
was to let them paint with watercolors on a piece of white
paper. When the papers were dried, I cut them into simple
leaf shapes and used them to decorate a large tree shape on
the wall. I just rolled pieces of tape and stuck them to the
backs of the leaves and placed them on the branches of the
tree and on the ground beneath it.
NOTE: I have never done this, but I saw a great ideas
once, where a teacher had cut old grocery sacks apart and
had twisted them up to resemble a twisted 3-D tree and branches.
It really looked great. You might want to try it. Let me know
how it turns out!