In most of the country, fall leaves are everywhere! Here are some fun ideas for those leaves:
I love to watch kids chase leaves as they are falling from trees. It’s a fun challenge to try and catch one before it hits the ground, and the fact that it only happens a few days a year makes it even more special.
Rake those leaves into a big pile jump in them. It’s an old idea, but one your kids will remember forever. We have some new subdivisions east of here that don’t have enough leaves for a doll to jump in. One mom I know drives downtown to a park with huge old trees and lets the kids rake a huge leaf pile. They get all the fun of leaf piles without having to clean them out of their gutters or bag them.
Speaking of bagging them, use those leaf bags for decoration. Black ones can become big spiders in you attach legs. You can add faces to white ones for ghosts, or just write the word “Boo” on them. I once saw a stack of three trash bags filled with leaves that made a cute and early “snowman”. You can also buy bright orange pumpkin bags for your own pumpkin patch.
Have the kids gather as many types of leaves as they can to make a poster or book. Use the internet or a nature guide book to label the different varieties. Small children will be happy sorting the leaves into colors, shapes, or sizes.
You can decorate wreaths with leaves, or capture some between clear contact paper for placemats, too. Or preserve some leaves in glycerin for Thanksgiving decorations. Leaves make great stencils. Set the leafs on paper and dab paint around them to make cards, placemats, or wrapping paper. It’s a beautiful effect, particularly if use a variety of leaves. A really fun thing to kids to do with those leaves is to use their imaginations to make leaf creatures!
Enjoy those leaves!