Thankful Wreath

*If you remember I had a idea for the leaves that survived from the Fall Leaves post, this is that idea.

It's almost Thanksgiving so I wanted my family to reflect on what we have to be thankful for, so why not make it into something we can see and tie in the autumn feeling? So I thought this Thankful Wreath would be a cute easy idea for us.

If you still need to collect some leaves look out for the flatest ones or if you can collect them and let them dry in heavy book. Our's were pretty flat but I didn't mind casualties and crunching when we were gluing the leaves to the poster board. I assume nothing is going to turn out perfect with a 3 year old involved, it's just the experience that's important.

Besides the leaves you need a poster board (we used a orange, but whatever color that ties in the leaves is fine), glue, pencil, sharpie & 2 round objects, 1 large an 1 small (we used bowls).

I let my daughter do the circle tracing with a pencil. First the large. Try to get closest to the edges so you can maximize use of the paper. It comes in handy as something to lay under wreath when gluing. You will also need the same color as the foundation to trace out leaves to write your special thankful message.

Now try to get your small circle as center as possible.

Your turn. ;) Time to cut out the tracings. I tried to cut as close to the outer circle for the reasons I mentioned above, but for the inner circle I just folded it in half & went for it.

During that time I had my daughter pick out her 3 favorite leaves. Try to keep in mind size, so you can fit what each of you are thankful for. One for Daddy, Mommy, & Riley. So if you are doing this with multiple children you'll need more and let them choose.

This was my turn, but your child maybe totally capable. Trace each leaf. I did it with sharpie so I wouldn't lose the leaf's details.

Cut & write messages. We had Dad leave us a note of what he was thankful for since he would be at work & unable to join us. Once again I just used my little black sharpie. But here's either your kid's chance to write or draw out what they are thankful for or time to get your toddler to understand what they are appreciative for.

Fun time. Let your kids have fun with whatever glue you preference, we used just a craft glue. I tried to suggest to start big. It's easier to fill in gaps with little ones, plus you can stick stems under other leaves as you go. After it was all filled up I laid some heavy flat objects on top to easy the flattening process. Clearly toddler hands already did a lot of crunching so it wasn't a worry. But if you are worried, either skip this step or every few minutes check & fill in damage with some smaller leaves on top.

Now that it's all dry hang away. :) We just used a thumb tack. Not much weight an there was a perfect gap between leaf and poster, but there's always those double sided tape, gel deal. Whatever is easier for your household.

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Fall Leaves

It's fall! So what better way to really enjoy the season then playing with leaves? We took this fun one step further and used the beauty that is Autumn to get my 3 year old to not only understand what this season means to the plants around us but how different each leaf can be.

This project was just another great excuse to plan a family park trip. We went to a great near by park that our 3 year old could do the normal park stuff, but also had lots of hiking trails where we could find a great variety of trees and plants, well mostly for a great choice of leaves. When you get to head out on your trip I recommend bringing baggies for the items you are going to collect. Just remember nature doesn't equal clean. Try to get your little one to pick out nice whole leaves, the flatter the better, also lots of shapes and sizes. If you know anything about the plants or animals around you it's a great time to point them out and talk about it. My daughter, Riley and I had lots of fun trying to be super quiet an listen our hardest for what animals were around. It was fun guessing what animal could be crunching the leaves around us. Most of the time it turned out to be a bird, but still fun. Take the walk slow, you never know what you'll get lucky enough to find. We found a rabbit's nest without even leaving the trail.

The next day I pulled out a couple of those broken, paperless crayons and a few sheets of paper. We took out all the leaves we had collected and laid out the best, obviously her choice of best. I demonstrated first on my own little sheet of paper, this way she got the idea of not only how to do this, but what it was we were doing. One leaf at a time I laid under my sheet of paper nice an flat on the table an selected a crayon to rub on it's side over the bumpy area of the paper. Her eyes lit up like I just did a magic trick when the leaf imprint appeared. As simple as a project always sounds, just remember it's new to your little one and exciting. I did one more then set her up with a big sheet of her own. We discussed the shapes, sizes, colors, and textures of each leaves as we went. Sometimes there was a need of a mommy hand to hold the paper still or my fingers to narrow down the area of where the leaf could be, but for the most part it was her choice and just a great means to work on vocabulary and the season.

Note: We held on to our leaves, because she may want to do this again a few more times & I already have another project in mind.

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