Fall

Fall

Projects

Fall Dot Tree

Draw or paint a tree trunk with branches.  Trace a circle very lightly - this will be the boundary for your fall leaves!  With a Q-tip, make fall leaves by dipping the Q-tip into red, orange, yellow and brown paint.

Leaf Handprint

Paint a hand a fall color. Press it onto white paper.  Let dry. Then draw on the stem and veins with brown marker.

Paper Plate and Tissue Paper Leaf

Cut a paper plate into a leaf shape.  Cut a stem and vein out of brown construction paper.  Glue squares of tissue paper in fall colors, onto the paper plate leaf.  Glue on the vein and stem.

Salt Dough Fall Shapes

Make a batch of Salt Dough.  Here is the recipe. 

Directions: Mix up the salt dough - 3 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, 1 1/4 cups of water (plus up to an additional 1/4 cup as needed). Use an electric mixer on medium speed to beat the ingredients together until a ball forms. If the mixture is still crumbly, add more water. Knead the dough until it's smooth. Divide the dough into three balls. Roll out the dough and press with cookie cutters or make into your own shapes. Heat the oven to 225 degrees. Transfer the  dough onto a baking sheet. Bake the plaques for 2 hours, then let them cool completely. I made a half batch and it made a lot.  The picture only shows a sampling of what we made.  Once the shapes were cool, we painted them.  We added gold glitter to the paint for an extra sparkle!  

Beaded Indian Corn

My two older children have made this project before.  We did it again, because they turn out so cute and it is great for fine motor skills.

 Directions - Cut a chenille stem in half and form and x. Wrap one stem around the center of the x twice, leaving a short length of the stem. Bend the three remaining stems to form an Indian corn shape. String beads on each of the three long stems, alternating colors. Bend the end of each stem to secure.   Knot a piece of raffia around the short stem. (You can attach a magnet on the back if you want).

Handprint Pumpkin

We did this project with the 7 month old I babysit!

Learning Project

Fall Pumpkin Patch -Cutting Activity

To work on Keely's scissor skills, I had her cut out different items to add to her pumpkin patch each day.  She loved sticking her pumpkins and leaves to the wall each day!

Learning Activities

Lacing Cards for Fall

Skills:  fine motor

Here is the link for the Fall Lacing Card

Leaf Shadow Matching

Skills:  matching

I found this cute matching activity at totschooling.com  Here is the link

Roll and Say Fall ABC

Skills:  letter recognition

I placed the page on a lid for my cake pan. Keely and I took turns tossing/rolling an acorn onto the page and then saying the letter the acorn landed on!

Here is the link to this fun letter recognition game

Fall Cutting Cards

Skills: scissor skills

Here is the link to this printable- Fall Cutting Cards

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Projects

Tissue Paper Caterpillar

Cut red and green tissue paper into circles.  Apply Mod Podge to the circles to make a caterpillar and to secure them to the paper.  When dry draw on legs and facial features

Sponge Painted Caterpillar

Beaded Caterpillar

Skills:  fine motor

Learning Projects

Caterpillar Name Writing

Skills:  name writing, counting letters in your name, 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Patterns

Skills:  patterns

Here is the link for these pattern cards and templates

If I were the very hungry caterpillar . . . 

Skills:  writing, tracing, beginning writing

Here is the link for the writing template

Learning Activities

Caterpillar Tracing

Skills:  tracing, prewriting writing

Here is the link for this Fun Caterpillar

What is Different and Letter Tracing

Skills:  finding differences, tracing, letters, beginning writing

Here is the link for the What is Different, Letter Tracing and What Comes Next

What Comes Next

Skills:  what comes next

Roll and Draw a Caterpillar

Skills:  counting, following directions, spatial recognition,shapes

Here is the link for Roll and Draw a Caterpillar

Drawing and rolling

Earth Day

Earth Day

Projects

Earth Man!

Cut a blue circle out of construction paper

Cut out green shapes 

Cut out a red heart

Cut 4 green strips and accordion fold each strip

Directions:  Glue the green shapes and heart onto the blue circle

Glue on googly eyes and draw a smile

Glue on the arms and legs

Hand Print Earth

Cut out a blue circle

Paint a hand green and press onto the circle, paint on other green shapes to make the earth!

Painted Earth

Cut a circle out of white paper

Paint the circle - earth- blue and green

Earth Day!

Create a document just like below.

Cut squares of green and blue tissue paper

Glue the tissue paper squares onto the blank circle to make earth

Earth Day Tracing

I created a Word Document for my almost 3 year old nephew to work on his tracing skills.  We also did a little counting and name writing!

Winter!

Winter

Learning Activities
Winter Number Order Fun
Skills: Math - number recognition, number order, writing numbers
Here is the link to Winter Number Order Fun

Addie putting the numbers in order

Number Fill-In the Blank Activity

Addie's completed activity- I laminated the sheets, so we can reuse them!

Mitten Number Match

Skills:  Math - counting, number recognition, matching

Addie did this activity last winter, but it was the first time for Tana!  

Here is the link to this great number matching activity!

Penguin Splash Game

Addie and I did this fun number game last year! 

Here is the link to this number recognition counting game

Snowman Glyph

Skills:  Following directions, writing, coloring pasting

Only Tana and Addie were doing this project, so we didn't do all of the activities included with this activity.

Here is the link to this Snowman Glyph

Snowball Fight Math Game

Skills:  Math - counting, 

This math game focused on counting.  Here is the link to this Snowball Fight Counting Game.

Ice-Fishing for Letters!

Skills:  letter recognition

I've had this activity for many years, I modified it to fit in with our winter theme by having Tana go ice fishing. I wrote each upper and lowercase letter on old tin-can lids.  Then we used a magnetic fishing pole to catch the letters!  

Projects

Hooray for Snow!

Cut out a snowman shape from white paper and a snowbank

Cut out an orange nose, a scarf and three buttons

Glue the pieces to the snowman and draw on a mouth with black marker

Glue the snowbank and snowman to a piece of construction paper

Use pipe cleaners to make arms and glue the arms to the snowman

Use chalk to make snowflakes

Styrofoam Snowman Heads!

Push black push-pins into a Styrofoam ball

Cut an orange pipe cleaner for a nose and push into the Styrofoam ball

Make a loop with a silver pipe cleaner and push into the top to make a hanger

Tissue Paper Mitten

Draw a mitten shape onto white paper

Cut tissue paper into squares

Glue the squares onto the mitten.  Cut out the mitten

To make the marbled paper:

squeeze white shaving cream into a pan and spread it out, add a few drops of blue food coloring into the shaving cream and swirl it around.

Press white paper onto the shaving cream mixture and scrape off the excess. Let it dry

Glue the mitten onto the marbled paper

Circular Snowman!

I traced three different sized circles onto white paper, a scarf, arms and carrot nose onto colored paper.

Directions:  Cut out the circles, arms, scarf and nose.  

Glue all the pieces onto a 5x7 piece of construction paper

Draw on eyes and a mouth.

Tin Can Snowman

Paint 3 different sized tin cans white - let dry

Glue on buttons for the face and buttons down the front.  

Add a ribbon scarf

Cut out 2 identical circles from craft foam and glue 4 corks to the centers of the circles.

Glue the foam/cork hat to the top of the snowman

Melted Snowman

Cut out a black hat, sun and nose

Type and print the following poem

I made a little snowman

with a little hat.

The sun came out and 

melted him and now my

snowman is FLAT!

Directions:  Rip a snowman face from white paper

Glue the face to a piece of construction paper.

Glue on the hat and nose and draw on the eyes and mouth

Glue the sun to the top corner

Glue the poem to the bottom corner

Framed Snowflake Sun Catcher

Cut a frame out of black construction paper

Cut a snowflake out of black paper

Cut shades of blue tissue paper into squares

Directions:  Place the frame on a piece of Contact paper

Place the snowflake in the middle of the frame

Cover with the tissue paper squares

Seal the other side with Contact paper

Cold Hands Warm Hearts

Paint hands and press onto paper

Draw a mitten shape around each hand and add a "cuff" to the mittens in a different color

Cut out a heart shape and glue the mittens in the center

Write - Cold hands Warm Hearts  on the heart

Penguins on Ice

Paint hand black and press onto white paper

Dip a Q-tip into white paint and make falling snow on colored construction paper

When dry, glue on a square of aluminum foil

Glue a white circle onto the hand and add an orange construction paper beak and googly eyes

Cut the penguin hand out and glue it to the paper.