The leaves have been so gorgeous in our area of NJ recently. My oldest mini-macaroni is 2 ½ years old, so I love to point out to her how the leaves have changed color. I have her name as many colors as she can as we take walks in our neighborhood or when we’re driving around doing errands. We recently collected some of the particularly pretty leaves that were still ‘whole’ and adorning our pathetically brown grass. Since I’m always trying to figure out how to tie our everyday routines to a lesson of sorts or craft, we brought them inside and made ‘prints’ of them.
Leaf Prints
- Place a piece of paper on top of a leaf and color over the leaf so that the print of the leaf comes through the paper. (We used colored construction paper)
- Turning the leaf upside down so that the vein side is up will give a better print.
This brought back so many memories of grade school arts and crafts! Our prints were so pretty I decided we could then use our leaves to make some fine looking turkeys!
Leaf Print Turkey
- Cut out your leaf prints
- Glue to colorful circle that can be made from foam, construction paper, or other material.
- Glue a smaller circle in the middle of your large circle to make space for a face.
- To make our face, we used Cheerios since they are still a staple at our house. My daughter was more than happy to use chocolate Cheerios to make the face, and we put out plenty to snack on.
- You can use Cheerios to make little feet for your turkey.
This was really easy (obviously), and kept my toddler interested because it was such a quick craft. This shows you can make your every day activities into something special!
