Today Bella and I went on a walk around the neighbourhood collecting leaves, gumnuts, bark and some other little interesting bits of nature that we found along the way.
In the afternoon we started some autumn craft. A few months ago several of you asked for more kids craft activities, so I thought over the next week or so I'd share some of the activities that we're doing at home with our nature collection.
These are just very simple ideas, but most importantly fun things to do together that also promote a child's creativity.
Crayon rubbings are an easy and fun way to start. Leaves have some very interesting textures which are prefect for this activity. It's almost magic when a child can see their leaf transforming onto the top of their paper.
We hung up a couple of Bella's favourite leaf rubbings in the window. Another idea is to cut around the individual shapes and create a leaf rubbing collage - glue the shapes onto a piece of card or paper.
A fun messy play activity is leaf printing with paint. We created a set of cards - simply paint one side of the leaf, position it on your paper or card and press down, rubbing gently. For smaller children add a sheet of newspaper/paper over the top for the child to rub on - this helps keep the mess to a minimum.