Fun Fall Crafts for Kids

While the weather gets colder, stay warm and cozy with these fantastic indoor crafts in fabulous fall colors. Try these with your class or with your kids at home over Thanksgiving break!

Fall Luminaries

Use these warm and inviting luminaries to decorate your classroom or let your students take them home as gifts! This craft will help younger children work on their fine motor skills, while older children will have fun using creativity to make their luminaries more elaborate.

What You Need:

Mason Jars

Mod Podge

Colored Tissue Paper

Brown Construction Paper

Paintbrush

Candles (tea candles are the perfect size!)

Wet Wipes (or wet paper towels)

1.Tear your colored tissue paper into small strips. 

2.Cut a tree shape out of brown construction paper. (You can make your tree as simple as the photo above or add more branches, etc.)

3.Using your paintbrush, coat the outside of your mason jar with mod podge. Then quickly adhere the tissue paper and the tree to the mod podge before it dries. You might want to do this part in sections since mod podge dries pretty quickly. You may want to keep wet wipes or a wet paper towel handy since the mod podge will also make your hands pretty sticky!

4.After you have attached all of your tissue paper, put a final coat of mod podge over everything.

5. Stick your candle inside the jar, light it, and turn off the lights for a fantastic fall display. You may want to use battery operated candles with young children, or you can simply forgo the candles and display your colorful mason jars without. 

Pumpkin Moon Sand

Tactile activities are great for young children, and this one smells just like pumpkin pie! Using play sand and a few ingredients from your kitchen, you can make this engaging sensory tool for hours of play!

What You Need:

Play Sand (4 Cups)

Corn Starch (2 Cups)

Water (1-3 Cups)

Pumpkin Pie Spice (1 Tsp)

Orange Food Coloring or Powdered Paint (optional)

1.Mix play sand, pumpkin pie spice, and corn starch together in a large container.

2.Add desired amount of coloring or paint.

3.Slowly mix in water until the mixture reaches your desired consistency. More water = slimier consistency. Less water = play dough consistency. 

4.Use scoopers, buckets, or hands only to play in the sand. When finished, leave your moon sand in an uncovered container to dry. (Do not seal it until it is completely dry, or there will be mold!) Once it is dry, you can seal it in a closed container or plastic bags. Just add water the next time you want to play!

Terrific Turkey Craft

What are YOU thankful for? Inspire gratitude and get your students in the Thanksgiving spirit with this cute, colorful, and easy-to-make craft!

What You Need:

Brown Paper Bags

Googly Eyes (or White and Black Construction Paper to make your own)

Multi-Colored Feathers

Glue

Markers

Colored Construction Paper

Scissors

1.Turn your brown paper bag upside down so that the opening is facing you, and write what you are thankful on the body of your bag.  

2.Glue a pair of eyes to the top of your bag. 

3.Cut an oblong, tear-shaped beak for your turkey and a bright red snood (term for the red fleshy bit that hangs over the turkey's beak). Glue those just below the eyes.

4. Deck out your turkey with festive feathers on the backside of the bag behind the turkey's face.

Fall Into Fun Craft Ideas

For the young and the young at heart, fall is the time for jumping into piles of leaves, carving pumpkins, and meandering through corn mazes. Now you can bring the colors of fall inside your classroom with these fun activities celebrating the season. Perfect for a preschool classroom, the crafts listed below teach crucial motor skills and are designed with simplicity in mind. Yet they also make great decorations to display in a classroom or to take home to mom and dad!

Fall Leaf Prints

What You Need:

Blank White Paper 

Plates

Leaves

Washable Paint

Glitter Glue (optional)

1.Pour out a little bit of each paint color onto your plates. Combining several paint colors on each plate will create a dazzling mosaic for your prints. Make your prints sparkle by adding glitter glue at this step.

2.Dip your leaves into the desired paint/glitter colors.

3.Press your leaves onto the white paper. Use your fingers to press firmly along the lines of the leaf to make the leaf structure stand out more. If you want to create a huge collage for your class, you might consider doing everyone's prints on the same long roll of paper. On a smaller scale, you can also do individualized collages on regular 8 1/2" x 11" paper.

A variation of this craft is leaf rubbing, in which a leaf is placed under a piece of paper, which is then colored over with crayons or colored pencils to reveal the leaf's structure.

Fall Coffee Filter Trees

What You Need:
Coffee Filters
Cardboard Tubes (toilet paper or paper towel rolls, etc.)
Washable Markers (assorted colors)
Spray Bottle
Water

1.Color your coffee filters with fall colors--typically red, yellow, and orange. Scribbles will do. This doesn't have to be neat since the colors will run together anyway.

2.Lay your colored filters on a flat surface or, preferably, a drying rack (like one you might use for cookies), and mist them with the spray bottle. Don't soak them. They should be lightly damp in order for the colors to spread over the filter but not run off of the filter.

3.Cut slits in the top of your cardboard tubes, and gently bend the slits to make tree branches.

4.Once the filters are dry, simply stuff them into the top of the tube. Now your beautiful fall tree is done!

Pro-Crafter Tip: Ask all your classroom teachers to save the toilet paper & paper towel rolls at the end of each week and store them for future craft projects!

 

 3D Card Stock Pumpkins

What You Need:

Orange and Green Card Stock

Scissors (child-safe with rounded edges for young children)

Ruler

Dark Orange Fine Tip Marker

Black Medium Tip Marker

Two Split Pins

1.Divide your orange card evenly into 8 sections using the orange marker, marking the sections off with neat hash marks. A ruler will be handy for this step to keep the lines straight and the spaces even. The orange marker will blend into the paper so that it won't show very much once the pumpkin is formed.

2.Cut out 8 strips of orange card along your hash marks. 

3.Punch a hole in one end of each strip large enough for the split pin to go through. (This step may be done by the teacher/parent for young children.)

4.Thread your pieces of card onto the split pin and lock the pin in place. 

5.Repeat steps 3 and 4 with a second split pin on the opposite end of your strips to create the 3D pumpkin. You will want to cut a small strip of green card and attach it to the second split pin to form the stalk. Make sure you thread the green strip onto the pin first so that it will be on the outside of your pumpkin.

6.Decorate the outside of your pumpkin with a black marker to create the face. Voila! Your pumpkin friend is done! Just don't use him to trick or treat, or your candy might disappear!

Preschool Thanksgiving Craf

Items needed:

·         Construction paper

·         Glue

·         Paint

·         Wiggle eyes

·         Scissors

Use an off-white or white piece of construction paper as the background for this craft. You don’t want to use too dark of a color or the paint colors will not show up as vibrant.

Next take a piece of brown construction paper and cut a medium sized circle. This is for the body of the turkey.

Then take an off white piece of construction paper and cut a smaller circle that will fit inside the larger circle. This will be the face of the turkey.

Using red construction paper cut out the turkey’s snood.

With orange construction paper cut a small triangle for the turkeys’ beak and a trident shape for the turkeys’ feet.

Trace around the large brown circle in the middle of the page.

Have the children paint their hands and stamp them around the circle that they have traced.

Then have the children glue the pieces of cut out shapes in order to create the turkey shown above.

Last step is to add the turkeys wiggle eyes.

That’s one cute little turkey!

Native American Headband

One of our favorite memories in school is getting to make headbands and pilgrim hats. Here is a simple, but decorative headband for children to enjoy making.

All you will need is construction paper, a stapler and markers

1. Cut a 2” rectangle out of white construction paper. This rectangle needs to be long enough to go around the top of the Childs head. Not too tight so it is uncomfortable for them to wear, but just loose enough for it to come off with ease.
2. Using the markers have the children color tribal designs: triangles, circles, zigzags, let their creative thoughts flow. You can also turn this into a shapes activity for little ones.
3. Next grab your colored construction paper, Let the children pick out four of their favorite colors. Once they have chosen their colors, cut out long oval shapes in different sizes, once you have done this you can have the children fringe the sides of the leaves creating a feather.
4. Once all is cut and colored, you will want to staple the ends of the headband together. Grab your feathers and staple them to the inside of your headband, in the same spot as the staple connecting the headband together. You will want to layer the feathers so all sizes show use the above photo for reference.

Thanksgiving classroom craft

 

It’s turkey time, let’s make a gobbling turkey plate!

What you will need: paper plate, orange,red,yellow & red paint, white construction paper, red construction paper, wiggle eyes, paint palette. paint brush, glue, art apron

1. Put your different colors of paint in a paint palette and put on your art apron.
2. Paint the center of the plate: brown
3. On the rippled rim of the plate: use the red, yellow, orange and just a little bit of brown paint. You will want to alternate the colors creating a pattern
4. With white construction paper, cut two medium size circles, glue them on the center of the plate towards the top, overlapping one another just a bit for the eyes.
5. Using the yellow paint, you will paint a triangle under the two white circles in the center of the plate to create the nose.
6. With the red construction paper, you will cut a rounded squiggle shape to glue on the side of the nose.
7. Grab your wiggle eyes and glue them to the center of the two white circles to complete your turkey.

That’s all there is to it! We hope you have a gobbling good time!

Silly Little Turkey Classroom Craft

Items needed: Light and Dark Brown, Orange, Yellow, Red, White & Black Construction Paper, Feathers, Glue, Scissors

Now that fall has arrived, It’s time to start preparing for Thanksgiving crafts.

Why not start with this silly little turkey!

Gather all your items needed for this adorable little craft. First things first, grab your handy dandy scissors and your dark brown construction paper. You will be cutting a circle for the base of the turkey. We chose to do a medium size circle. Cut as large or as small as you want the the turkey to be.

Once you have finished cutting all of the base circles from the dark brown circles, grab your white Construction paper. This is going to be the paper used for the base of the eyes. Cut two large circles (not as large as the original circle that you used for the base of the turkey.) Just big enough that the small black circles can fit in the center of the base of the eye on the following step.

Using your light brown construction paper cut multiple strips to be crisscrossed and glued to the top of the turkey.

Now grab the black construction paper and cut two quarter size circles. These are the center of the eyes.

With the yellow construction paper cut a Medium size triangle. Large enough to cover most of the middle of the turkey, but smaller than the two eyes put next to one another.

Using the red construction paper, cut a bean shape. This is to be the turkeys wattle.

Using the orange paper cut two skinny strips to represent the turkeys legs.

Once you have all the pieces of the turkey cut out, lay them on the children’s desks  along with five colorful feathers and their glue. Then watch your silly little turkeys smile and laugh as they enjoy decorating their very own silly little turkeys!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Football Trees

October is coming to an end and the leaves are falling. It can only mean Fall is here and Football games too!! It’s time to transition your rooms so, why not have the children help with the decorations this year with these Festive Fall Football Trees!

Items needed: Construction paper, Silver Sharpie, Glue or glue sticks and Scissors

Pick out the colors you would like the children to work with. (Suggetions on colors to use: red, orange, yellow, for those who would like to add more colors add purple, blue and pink )

For the leaves: cut ovals in all the colors you would like the tree leaves to be, repeating this step as needed to aquire the amount of leaves needed for a full tree. Using the brown construction paper, cut out all of the footballs in an oval shape as well.

(You can have the little ones cut out the leaves and footballs or have them precut and ready to go to make craft time a breeze.)

For the trunk of the tree:  cut a rectangle with a wider trunk to give it the tree trunk look.

For the footballs: once the footballs have been cut out, use the silver shapie to add the lines of the threads on the football. (It’s best for the teachers to do this task due to it being a permanent marker and not a washable marker.)

Now that all the parts of the trees have been cut out and the footballs have been lined, use the glue or glue sticks to layer the leaves and footballs to the tree trunk creating a… Ready… set… hike…Football Tree.

Happy Football Fall Everyone!

Thanksgiving Crafts - Turkey Prints

Here’s another turkey craft to enjoy with your little ones. You will need finger paint in red, yellow and brown. Start by painting the hand red and stamping it three times with the palms meeting at the bottom to give it a “V” shape. Next add two yellow handprints between the three red ones to add some color to the feathers.

Next, paint the bottom of the foot brown and print it on top of the hand prints with the heel at the top and the toes at the bottom. Lastly, you can add on the beak, snood, feet and some wiggle eyes.

Now you have an adorable Turkey for the Holidays. You can even have students do this onto a t-shirt or a tote bag!

Thanksgiving Crafts - Fingerprint Turkey

This fingerprint turkey is the perfect craft for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday! You will need finger paint in light orange or yellow, orange, red and brown. You will also need a bit of black and white paint as well for the finishing touches.

Lets get started! Begin by dabbing your pointer finger into the light orange or yellow color. Create an arc by printing your finger onto the page about 8-10 times. Next, take the red color and make a smaller arc beneath it using the same technique. Repeat this step once more using the red paint to complete the tail.

If you have gone for the facing forward Turkey, paint your thumb brown and stamp it vertically into the middle to be the body of the turkey. If you have gone for the side view you will want to print your thumb horizontally from the middle and then add a head by printing in brown with your pointer finger vertically.

Don’t forget to add on the finishing touches with eyes, a beak, legs and feet! Now you have an adorable craft for Thanksgiving. Try having your students do this on the front of a blank card. Then have them write to someone they are thankful for and tell them why they are thankful for them.