It’s that time of year to get into some fall fun! Between the pumpkin spice everything, Instagramming fall leaves, and picking the perfect pumpkin, sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of the more important things, like spending time with your family. There are few things more fun to a kid than making crafts with their favorite people (that’s you!).
Here are some fun craft ideas to try with your little ones this season!
P.S. If you’re looking for some FREE crafts to enjoy with the kids, we will have a craft booth at our Fall Festival on the 27th and 28th!
Pom Pom Spider
Materials:
Instructions to Make:
1. Cut the pipe cleaners into 8 pieces that are the same length
3. At the end of the leg, fold the bottom of the pipe cleaner over to create a small knot so the beads do not fall off
4. Glue each leg to the body (black pom pom) with the tacky glue.
5. Attach the googly eyes- add as many eyes as you’d like!
6. Let the glue dry
Popsicle Stick Scarecrow Magnet
Materials:
- Popsicle Sticks
- Craft Paint(orange, white, black, red)
- Raffia
- Cardstock / Cardboard
- Hot Glue Gun / Glue
- Elmer’s Glue
- Magnets
Instructions to Make:
1. Start off by using Elmer’s glue to glue on your craft sticks, 7 of them, to your cardstock or cardboard. It really doesn’t matter what you use for the backing just as long as it is strong enough to support the sticks. Also, make sure that you cut your backing so that it’s not longer or wider than the popsicle sticks. Let dry!
2. This is the step the parent will want to help with. Hot glue a few strands of the raffia onto one craft stick for the scarecrow’s hair. I just cut a few pieces for each side. Once the hot glue is dry you can then glue the stick onto the rest of the scarecrow body.
3. We choose to paint the scarecrow at this point. If you think it would be easier for your kids to paint prior to attaching the hairpiece then you can do that beforehand. We just found it easier to paint afterward. Now that everything is painted you get to sit and watch paint dry. Luckily it’s just craft paint and it will be dry in minutes, not hours.
4. The next step is to paint on the adorable face. Depending on the age and painting skill level of your children you could always paint the face on for them or cut out pieces of felt or foam and attach with glue. We didn’t add anything to the hat but I think we might go back and add a flower as well. Just dress it up, however, you like it.
5. Attach magnets to the back of your scarecrow. I used two .75 inch adhesive magnets to hold mine up. That’s it, you are all done with your popsicle stick scarecrow.
Fabric Ghost
Materials:
- Inexpensive, white fabric, we recommend muslin
- Scissors strong enough to cut fabric but not too sharp for young kids
- Optional: Pinking Shears
- Styrofoam balls, we recommend these
- Black Marker that doest bleed, we recommend black Flair pens or artist pens
- Festive ribbon
- Clear string for hanging your ghosts
1. Cut your fabric into a square, about 9”x9”. You can cut them using regular fabric scissors, but realize the ends will fray eventually depending on the fabric. You can cut the fabric squares out using pinking shears to prevent fraying. (Plus, the zig zag edge gives the ghosts a unique look).
3. Draw short dashes around the edges of the fabric. (Or try other patterns or designs like polka dots etc.)
4. Flip the fabric over. Place a styrofoam ball in the center of the fabric, and gather it around the ball to form the head of your ghost.
5. Tie a piece of ribbon around the neck to secure. (For young children you can hold the ghost in place and let them tie the ribbon, or they can hold the ghost for you while you tie the ribbon.)
6. Draw eyes on your ghost with a black marker.
7. Tie some clear string (illusion cord) around your ghost to hang from a decorative branch or anywhere around your house or classroom!
Fall Button Tree
Materials:
- Pipe Cleaners
- Assorted Buttons
Instructions to Make:
- take 3-4 pipe cleaners in a bunch and fold them in half
.
2. Twist the bottom to form the free trunk and spread out the “branches” on the top
3. Slide assortment of buttons onto the pipe cleaner branches for leaves. That’s it!
Check out some cool ideas on how to incorporate learning into the activity:
- You could add numbers to the trees and children try to put that many buttons on that tree.
- Children could sort by color and put all yellow buttons on one tree
- They could try to get every single button in the bin onto a tree branch.
- Older children could practice skip counting by putting two buttons on each branch, or three buttons on each branch.
- Patterning can be practiced by making each branch of the tree a different repeating pattern (red, orange, red, orange)
- Really strengthen fine motor skills by encouraging older children to actually “button” the button onto the tree branches (weave the pipe cleaner in one hole and out of the other in the same button)
Clay Pumpkin Keepsake
Materials:
- Air dry clay
- Paint
- Drinking straw
- Craft stick
- Green ribbon
1: Roll the clay out, about 1/2″ thick. Let your little one press her hand onto the clay.
2: Use a craft stick to cut the shape of a pumpkin. Smooth the edges. Make a hole in the stem with a drinking straw.
Step 3: Let the clay dry for 24 hours.
4: Use acrylic paint to turn the handprint into a Halloween design. It can be a ghost, Jack’o’Lantern, Frankenstein, candy corn. Paint the rest of the pumpkin orange and the stem brown.
5: Thread a green ribbon through the hole in the stem.
