by MC Allen

Created on: August 03, 2011

Planning for the new school year requires new ideas and a fun new perspective to spice up old projects and themes.  With multiple holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving, the Fall season is a variable goldmine for art projects, especially for the little ones.  Most preschoolers need simple, easy projects to complete. 

Try making a Pumpkin Placemat for the month of October that can be used at the Halloween party or just for a fun day of special snacks.  Take a large sheet of finger painting paper and allow the children to cover it in orange paint.  Once the finger paint is dry, cut out a large pumpkin (use the children’s painting to dictate the shape of the pumpkin).  Every pumpkin will be different.  Individually sit down with the children and some black paint (glitter paint is fun).  Use the child’s handprint for the eyes, their fist for the nose and then handprints again for the mouth (place their hands sideways for the mouth).  After the pumpkin is dry, laminate the whole thing and a creative placemat has been made. 

Another fun and decorative project is a simple leaf wreath that can hang in the classroom or be taken home to hang for Thanksgiving.  Start with paper bags cut up to lay flat.  Let the children sponge paint fall colors on the bag for an autumn leaf effect.  Cut leaf shapes out of the paper bags and intersperse solid leaf cut outs for a blast of color.  Using poster board cut out a circle wreath and then allow the children to paste the leaves all over the wreath.  This ends up being a beautiful fall decoration and the parents love it. 

Finally, all children love spiders (yeah I don’t get it either) and marble painting spider webs is always a big hit.  Use black construction paper and cut out the shape of a web.  Place this shape in a box top (like a shirt box) with a little dab of white paint.  Use either 1 or 2 marbles and let the child move the box back and forth to create a web like effect on the black paper.  When the paint is dry, glue a plastic spider on the web and a spooky Halloween project is complete.

These projects are really geared to the 2 to 3 year old child.  These children want to be independent yet need a little extra help to make it their own.  And that is important, making it their own.  No teacher ever wants every project to be exactly the same and these 3 Fall projects allow for some variations. 

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