Autumn Leaf Activity!

Galit Raviv, MA, CCC-SLP, Speech Language Pathologist 

Lisa Richardson, MS, OTR/L, Occupational Therapist

Temperatures are dropping, leaves are changing, Fall is in the air! Here is a versatile fun fall craft activity to make with your little ones! Remember – the crafting fun doesn’t just take place at the table! Involve your child from the beginning to end! Work together to plan out the craft. Talk about how many leaves you need, what colors you are looking for, and what shapes you are going to create. Once you're looking for the leaves together you can introduce a “leaf” hunt where you ask your little one to find a leaf you describe! For example, “I see a small red leaf next to the rock!”.

Once you have gathered all the leaves and have brought them back home, expand by building on your child's imagination. Ask your child where the “leaf creature” lives, what they might be doing (maybe they are eating ice cream or building a house). Get creative!  

Build bilateral skill, visual motor skills, and fine motor strength by having kids cut leaves into small colorful pieces to create a mosaic collage picture. For younger kiddos who are still learning scissors, try tearing and ripping the leaves. 

Keep it simple and have kids create colorful collages, or see if your child can expand their ideas to create simple shapes, animals, people or designs with their pieces. For older kids see if you can guess what your child is creating or have them describe something for you to make to work on expanding descriptive language.  

Happy leaf hunting!