Preserve a Colorful Fall Leaves Craft for Kids

Preschool Fall Crafts Can Be Saved as Seasonal Computer Wallpaper

Sep 26, 2008

This year, try fall crafts for kids for the twenty-first century. Here's a fall leaves craft with a tech-savvy way to prevent fading.

As autumn days grow shorter, trees sense the change of season. Leaves stop making green chlorophyll and all of a sudden, the yards are dotted with yellow elms, red maples, purple dogwoods, golden hickories, brown oaks, and orange sugar maples. Preschool fall crafts make use of the bright treasures, but in days, the fall crafts for kids fade to crinkly brown. Here's an idea that can keep a fall leaves craft vibrant and colorful.

Preschool Fall Crafts, Gathering Leaves on a Nature Walk

Peak color times vary from region to region, but are generally brief. Once the colors come out, kids have just a week or so to find their supplies.

For this collage, children will need as many different shades and shapes of leaves as they can find. Parents can help kids identify the varieties they collect. Kids may want to scrounge around for acorn caps, twigs, and pinecones to add texture to their collage.

Fall Leaves Craft Instructions

Once parents set up an uncluttered workspace for the fall leaves craft, kids can sort the leaves by color and shape. As kids sort, parents can clip the stems off to make the project go faster.

A parent can prompt her child’s creativity by asking what images the fall leaves bring to mind. What pictures could he imagine painting with the palate of autumn leaves? Does a fire, a sunset, or a bowl of fruit come to mind? Do certain shapes remind them of parts of animals, cars, food, or people? What could children use their acorn caps and twigs to represent?

When inspiration strikes, parents can set their kids to work arranging the fall leaves craft. The collage will look best if no gaps are left to show through. Kids don’t need to worry about gluing the leaves in place. This will only get in the way of any creative tweaks that have to be made along the way.

Fall Crafts for Kids, Preserving the Collage

No matter how tightly sealed with wax paper and iron, the brilliant colors of the leaf collage will fade in a matter of weeks. A fun solution to this dilemma is capturing the image digitally. Kids or parents can snap a few shots with their camera, then re-sort the leaves and start all over again if they like.

Setting the Fall Leaves Craft as a Desktop Background

Once they’ve finished creating their colorful fall leaves craft, kids and parents can download the pictures and enjoy beautiful autumn wallpaper on the computer’s desktop throughout the fall season.

The copyright of the article Preserve a Colorful Fall Leaves Craft for Kids in Kids Crafts is owned by Marcy Paulson. Permission to republish Preserve a Colorful Fall Leaves Craft for Kids in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.