A month or two ago I shared a post called 7 Ways to Enjoy Being Crafty with your Toddler. It highlighted some of the simple things I've learned as I've crafted with both my son and daughter during the toddler stage.
Now that my son is in an afternoon Kinderprep almost every day, I actually have a little bit of solo time with my 21 month old daughter when she wakes up from her nap. Sometimes we play with her toys and read books and sometimes we try and do a little craft project... and sometimes we have time to do all three!
I hope to share some of the simple toddler crafts that I do with her as part of a Mom and Tot Craft Time Series.
My goals for Mom and Tot Craft Time include...
- enjoying an open-ended craft activity together
- reviewing language concepts
- teaching new vocabulary words
This week I am sharing a simple Fall activity where we made Sparkly Felt Leaves!
Materials Needed:
Pre-cut felt into leaf shapes, sparkly objects (we used sequins and buttons), and tacky glue.
Directions:
- Squeeze tacky glue onto the felt leaves.
- Press buttons, sequins, and any other embellishments onto the leaves.
- Let dry.
- String several leaves up using ribbon and hang as a decorative Fall garland around your house.
Crafting along with toddlers is a great time to teach language concepts and even simple requests and sentences in a sneaky way. Whenever I sit down and craft with my toddler, I am amazed at how much longer she will explore the materials. I am also floored sometimes by the words that come out of her mouth... maybe because I am used to her brother talking so much that I miss things she says?
Words and language concepts we reviewed in this activity included: on top, under, down, up, color words, adjectives like sparkly, shiny, bumpy, big, little, etc., and then following simple directions/requests. Some of the directions were ones like, "Can you find the big button?" "Can you pick up the sequins off the floor?" "Can you press down the green sequin?"
This activity also worked on fine motor skills and building some finger muscles because the glue was hard to squeeze and the sequins were tough to pick up! I love collage projects with varied materials for toddlers!
Do you have any other favorite simple Fall crafts for toddlers?
Here are a few of the ones I've pinned recently:
- Acorn paintings via Teach Preschool
- Yarn Stamped Fall Tree via No Time for Flashcards
- Yarn Trees via 3 Dinosaurs
- Fall Cookie Cutter Painting via Dirt and Boogers
If you want even MORE Fall ideas, I highly recommend that you check out this beautiful e-book recently released by The Artful Parent.
The Artful Year: Autumn Crafts and Recipes E-book features 78 pages of autumn leaf crafts, Halloween decorations and crafts, delicious apple and pumpkin recipes, and ideas for celebrating Thanksgiving! I am excited to be an affiliate and share this e-book with you! If you click on the image below, you can see a few sneak peaks at some of the pages in the book. The Apple Cheddar Hand Pies look delicious!
To purchase the book you can click on the image above or in my right top sidebar. It is selling for $9.99, which is a steal considering all of the great ideas you will be getting! Click here to grab your own copy right away!
Also, did you happen to catch my October BabbaBox Sneak Peek post? There is a special discount code that only can be used until October 1st... so hurry and order your October box so you can discover what the surprise inside is!
I can't wait to try this with my son! They would make cute gifts for family members. 🙂
Thanks for sharing this idea with Tuesday Tots! I've featured your post this week on In Lieu of Preschool: inlieuofpreschool.blogspot.com/2012/10/its-fall-at-tuesday-tots.html Stop by and grab a featured button if you'd like. I'm off to pin your post now!
P.S. Your daughter is adorable! 🙂
So cute!! My girly girl would love these! Thanks so much for sharing! Popping over from NTFFC!
Great idea! Simple but creative! And the leaves look so cute!
Thanks so much for answering. I am impressed with your cutting skills, lol. Your maple leaves are amazing. I know mine would not come out as nice as yours. I will look into the fabric leaves. Thanks again.
Ha! 🙂 The stiff felt definitely makes it easier. I have a maple leaf template I'm sharing as part of a post tomorrow that I used when I cut these out. That and good fabric scissors helped a lot! Have fun creating!
I have a silly question. Did you buy the leaves or did you cut them yourself? If you bought them, where did you get them? Thank you.
I cut them myself out of stiff felt. I've been fabric ones/fake leaves, but not felt ones. You could probably do the same activity with some of the fake leaves out there though if you don't want to cut out the felt!
Thanks for the link! I love what they did with the leaves!
So cute, I love this idea! I'd love for you to link this up to Tot School Tuesday: seevanessacraft.com/2012/09/tot-school-tuesday-the-very-hungry-caterpillar/
I really like these leaves! I expect they will show up soon at my house!