5 Fun Fall Activities for Preschoolers

One of "My Most Popular Posts" right now is "10 Fun Fall Crafts for Toddlers." That seems appropriate, yet all of images from that 2011 post have disappeared due to Pinterest's changes. Here's a 2013 update!

These activities are all FRUGAL, FUN, & KID-FRIENDLY. I hope you'll try a few out with your kiddos!



1. Fall Nature Canvas

We actually made this one in September, but we keep replenishing our leaves as the old ones shrivel up. You need a foam board, straight pins, a shirt or paint to cover your board, and leaves. The girls painted the board yellow (washable paint). Then, we went on a Nature Walk and gathered pretty leaves that they stuck on the board with pins. 

This craft is super simple but really adds a touch of Fall to the house! Plus, we used it as a learning opportunity and looked up our leaves in the tree guide. Now the girls know what trees are around our house.

2. Easy Popcorn Balls

I can't remember what prompted us to make popcorn balls (a book??), but when I found this super EASY recipe, we had to do it. The girls enjoyed melting the butter and marshmallow, and they REALLY loved adding sprinkles at the end. Our Fall popcorn balls look more like Christmas ones since they used green and red sprinkles, but they were FUN and DELICIOUS.

3. Crunchy Fall Leaf Pictures

Photo Credit

We haven't done this one since 2011 :) so I think we'll revisit it next week since the leaves here are getting pretty crunchy. These pictures also make lovely Fall decorations for your home. Plus, the girls love to see their handiwork on display. A word of advice: If you do this activity inside, put a baking sheet underneath the paper to catch all that leaf confetti. It makes a MESS! But the finished products are beautiful.

4. A Thankful Tree

Photo Credit

We have made a Thankful Tree for the past two years. Unfortunately, I can't find my pictures to share ours with you, but both most closely resembled Emily Rose's (pictured above). We gathered sticks and tree limbs from the yard and fit them into a 1/2 gallon glass milk jug. Then, I cut out paper leaves {here's a template} which we placed beside the Thankful Tree. 

During our morning devotionals, we would each share a blessing, and I would write it on a leaf {one per person} with the date and each girls' name on the back. The girls string the leaves with yarn, and I tie them to the tree. I keep the leaves so each year for beautiful memories. The girls look forward to adding leaves and it's a perfect opportunity to praise God for all His sweet gifts!

5. Finger-Painted Pumpkins

Photo Credit

Our girls are still too young to cut out pumpkins, but I really want them to participate in the decorating. My mom blessed us with three pumpkins -- one for each girl -- so we're going to have a go at this idea {thanks, Pinterest!}. 

Basically, you apply painter's tape to your pumpkin and use an X-acto knife to cut out the image you want. Then, your child finger paints to her hearts' content over the painter's tape (and anywhere else). Once the paint dries, you remove the tape to reveal your picture! I think the girls will love making their own pictures and getting to paint their pumpkins.

Those are just 5 simple Fall activities you can do with your little ones (and even your big kids). For more fun Fall ideas, check out my Fall Recipes, Fall Decor, & Fall Crafts for Kids boards on Pinterest.

Happy Fall, ya'll!

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Creating a Seasonal Table for Valentine's Day {Or, My Attempts to Grow as a Homemaker}

Photo Credit: libertygrace0

I want to grow in so many ways as a wife, a mom, and a child of God. One area in which I am always in need of "cultivation" is homemaking. It just doesn't come naturally to me. My mom could decorate an entire room in one trip to TJ Maxx and an hour's worth of work, but unfortunately, her decorating knack did not pass down to me.

However, I desperately want my house to be a home where we can grow together as a family, and I want our children to participate in it, too.

That's why this year I am introducing a "seasonal table" to our home.

What is a Seasonal Table?

Source: goldensunfamily.blogspot.com via Keri on Pinterest

For those of you, like me, who are unfamiliar with the seasonal table, it comes from Waldorf education principles, which encourage children to be lifelong learners through exploration and interaction in areas of interest. While I'm not a Waldorf fan for the most part, I do like this concept.

A seasonal table (or nature table) is whatever you want it to be. It can be very simply or elaborately decorated. But the contents of the table usually revolve around a particular season, holiday, time of year, or theme. It may be nature-based or not.

How to Create a Seasonal Table?

Source: seasonsnaturaltoys.blogspot.com via Keri on Pinterest

The first step in creating a seasonal table is finding a table and space accessible to your children. I chose a modest end table on loan from my mom. It's small but at the perfect height for young children. 

I have a small area in our living room that we are using to house our seasonal table. Limited space is no problem.

Then, simply gather materials you already have, find outside, or you buy at the store. How much or how little you spend is entirely up to you! 

How you arrange your seasonal table is also up to you. I have NO decorating skills whatsoever; however, the kids can't tell. They just love to see a space that is open for their little hands to play with and explore.

Take it down and start over again for each new holiday, season, or family event.

Our Valentine's Day Table

 

I have attempted the seasonal table before but never consistently. This year I aim to change that beginning with a table centered around Valentine's Day.

Because of so many illnesses in our family the past two weeks, I have not done the best job at finding as many "child-friendly" items as I'd have liked. However, the children are allowed to touch and play with any of the objects--even the breakable ones; however, they cannot take the items out of the room.

Beside the table is a basket filled with books relevant to the particular season, holiday, or theme. Here are our Valentine's Day books.

  
And on both sides of the table are chairs on which a child can sit and look at one of the books or play with items on the table.

It's all about the children's interaction. This heart-shaped glass bowl ($1 at the Dollar Tree) is filled with heart-shaped stickers. The girls can pick one out any time they do something kind or loving to another. 

 

The other knicknacks on the table afford little hands with opportunities to touch, take apart, explore, create, and imagine. My four-year-old has already asked if we can put a different picture in the Love frame and why the red heart-shaped box is empty. We will be doing something there for sure.

All of the decorations on our seasonal table are inexpensive: I bought the majority at the Dollar Tree and Goodwill, so if something does get broken, it's not a big deal. 

 

I'm not a decorator, nor do I claim to be one. But I am working on becoming a better homemaker because I want to build a home of love. A seasonal table is just one way to do that.

How do you instill the seasons, holidays, or other themes into your home throughout the year? 

Have you ever attempted a seasonal table?
 
I would LOVE to hear your ideas! I may just include them in a future post!

{For more seasonal table ideas, follow me on Pinterest!}


Blessings to you as you grow in God's glory,

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Days 29-30: Finger Painting & a 2nd Scavenger Hunt

We're in the final stretch of "31 Days of Play." Technically, the challenge ends today, July 31st, but we missed a day of "play" on Sunday, so I'm making up for it with one final activity tomorrow, August 1st.

On Monday I made some homemade finger paints using a recipe that I've used before. They are very easy to make, and you probably have all of the ingredients on hand.

Recipe: Homemade Finger Paints

1/2 cup cornstarch

3 T sugar

1/2 t salt

2 cups water

Food coloring

Combine all four ingredients in a small pot. Stir on medium low until mixture warms and thickens. It should be pretty thick. Remove from heat and cool. Pour into containers and mix in food coloring.

I taped down some Kraft paper to our kitchen table, distributed bowls of finger paints, and let the girls dig in and paint. Of course, I painted, too. Actually, I think I enjoyed finger painting more than they did! There's something incredibly relaxing in smearing globular paints with your fingers.

Cora thought the paints were a little too icky for her liking.

Kate painted with them the longest; however, that was only 15 minutes. I think both girls really struggled with what to do with the paints because you can't actually draw anything with them. You more or less spread them around with your fingers and make a big mess, which I thought was totally fun; them, not so much.

All in all, I think finger painting would be a good quiet time activity for my girls because, at 8:00 in the morning, they were both more interested in running around outside than painting. But I will definitely do this art project again.

Today, we had another outdoor scavenger hunt. This time, instead of taking photos of natural objects in our yard for the kids to search for, I made a list of items for them to find.

Scavenger Hunt List

• A yellow leaf
• An ant
• A purple flower
• Something rough
• A stick to use as a magic wand
• A bird
• A dry patch of grass
• Something smooth
• A pine cone
• A really big rock
• Something unique that catches your eye

 One yellow leaf

 A purple flower

 Something rough

A stick to use as a magic wand

 

 Something unique that catches your eye--clumps of mowed grass :)

Blessings to you,
 

Keri

For comments or questions, contact me at: growinginhisglory@gmail.com

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Day 25: Nature Painting

We are on Day 25 of the "31 Days of Play!" Challenge. To find out what we've been doing, click here.

Today I wanted to get out the paints and head outside before the triple digits forced us to stay in. I found this idea for painting cards with dandelions at Simple Kids and thought it looked like something the kids and I could do together. However, instead of searching only for dandelions, we went on a little nature walk in our yard and picked up neat objects that we thought would be fun either to paint on or paint with. 

We collected a variety of rocks, Queen Anne's Lace, ferns, leaves, rosemary, tree bark, and dandelions of course.

 
 I set out different color washable tempera paints for the girls to choose from.

Then, each girl had a piece of watercolor paper that I taped to the tablecloth for them to paint on. Kate chose to paint her rocks instead.

While Cora just threw paint all over her paper.

I tried to show them how to use the nature objects as paintbrushes. Here I used a dandelion head to make rows of different colors.

 But they weren't too interested in that. Kate really just liked painting her rocks.

In any activity we do--whether school-related, arts & crafts, or play--I try to allow the kids freedom of expression and independence. I don't want to constrain them by saying "this is the way to do it" when they are having fun doing it "their way."

My goals for this craft were (1) to spend time together, (2) to explore nature, and (3) to create something with the natural objects we found. I believe we accomplished all three!

Here are our nature paintings:

Pretty cool, huh?

In what ways have you found to incorporate nature into arts & crafts with your kids? 

Keri

 

For comments or questions, contact me at: growinginhisglory@gmail.com

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Day 16: Outdoor Scavenger Hunt @ Home

 {If you're just now following us and curious about what we're doing, check out our prior "31 Days of Play" posts.}

I am always trying to find fun ways to explore nature with my kids, so I was excited when I found this idea for an outdoor scavenger hunt on Simple Homemade recently. However, I knew giving my 3 1/2-year-old and 21-month-old a written list of items to search for would not work. So, I opted for making a visual list of familiar outdoor items including plants, trees, flowers, and other natural features for a toddler-and preschooler-friendly outdoor scavenger hunt.

Here's a small glimpse of what I came up with, followed by instructions for how you can create your own scavenger hunt:

Scavenger Hunt @ Home

Instructions

1. Take some pictures of natural objects outside your home {alternatively, go to a local park or nature preserve}. Consider the age of your children in your selection. {My almost 4-year-old can distinguish between different tree leaves and barks; whereas, the almost 2-year-old can not. So, I threw in some easier pictures for her to find.} Also, I used 15 pictures for our kids. You might want to use more or less depending on the ages of your children and their familiarity with the natural objects in their backyard.

2. Edit your images. I used free and super-simple PicMonkey to enlarge and crop my images. I also added numbers to give order to our hunt. I ordered my pictures according to the location of the images in our yard, but for older kids, you could mix up the ordering to make it more challenging for them.

3. Print. Then, print out your images in color. You could use card stock paper, but I simply used regular white copy paper. 

4. Explore. Head outside with your paper list, and have fun with your kids finding the objects in your own yard. If you want, elicit any knowledge you might have about the plant, tree, or flower to your child, but keep it light and fun! We're enjoying nature, not having a botany lesson.

5. Offer a prize {optional}. I like incentives and so do my kids, so I offered the girls a prize if they could find all 15 items pictured on their list. Jellybeans for everyone!! Yea!!

 

 Even Dad was involved in the scavenger hunt!

 Kate celebrating after finding the hackberry tree pictured on the list

 Cora pointing to the rock she found

Kate with a Queen Anne's Lace--another item on the scavenger hunt list

An outdoor scavenger hunt is a simple but enjoyable way to explore nature with your kids, and the great thing is that you don't have to leave your house to do it! 

Have you ever created a visual scavenger hunt for your kids?  What did you do?

Thanks for joining me in our 16th day of "31 Days of Play"-- a challenge to play more with our kids!

Blessings to you!

Keri

For comments or questions, contact me at: growinginhisglory@gmail.com

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This post may be linked to: The Better Mom Mondays, Monday Mom Musings, Raising Arrows Welcome Home, Teach Me Tuesdays, Domestically Divine Tuesdays, Time-Warp Wife Titus 2Days, Encourage One Another, Top 10 Tuesdays, Loving Our Children Tuesdays, Women Living Well Wednesdays, Raising Homemakers Wednesdays, Works for Me Wednesdays, Raising Mighty Arrows Proverbs 31 Thursdays, Beautiful Thursdays, Hearts 4 Home, Faithfully Parenting Fridays

Day 12: Puddle Jumpin'

{If you're just now following us, we are in the midst of "31 Days of Play," my personal challenge to play more with my kids, both through intentional activities like arts & crafts and spontaneous events that don't require any forethought. The point is to focus on playing with our kids and learning what it means to be a kid again. I hope you will join us!}

Here in Tennessee we have been experiencing very hot temperatures and, until two days ago, no rain for weeks. But we have had some nice showers these past few days, and while I usually do not like rainy weather, I have not complained once about it because I know how much we need it!

Today, for our play time, I decided we needed to have some fun playing in the rain. There's something cathartic about donning your raincoats and boots, getting wet, and jumping in puddles. I felt like a {big} kid again!

We really have one "puddle," but the girls and I jumped in it over and over and over again.

 My two cuties: Cora still in her pajamas

 Kate took this picture. I think Cora & I are looking at the mud we're making in the puddle.

Splashin'

Oh, yeah!

Finding rocks

But mostly we just enjoyed walking around in the rain admiring how everything in our yard is GREEN again! 

Do you like to play in the rain with your kids? 


{For previous posts on playing with your kids, check here.}


Blessings to you,

Keri

For comments or questions, contact me at: growinginhisglory@gmail.com

Find Growing in His Glory on Facebook.

I would love to see more of you!  If you are encouraged by what you read here and would like to have posts from Growing in His Glory delivered to your inbox daily, simply click here.  Or you can subscribe in a reader of your choice in the right sidebar.