Autumn! Week 5 October 4-10

This week Is All About Autumn!

Crafts

Construction Paper Scarecrow

Supplies Needed: Construction Paper, Scissors and Glue

1. Hand your child pieces of construction paper and let them draw and cut out the clothes and face of a scarecrow.
2. Next, put the scarecrow together and glue them on a separate piece of construction paper or cardboard.
3. Your child may now decorate the background surrounding their scarecrow, with corn stacks, grass, sun, clouds, crow, anything they wish. (1)

Twig Photo Frame

Supplies Needed: Photo frame, Twigs and Glue

1. Have your child collect different size twigs outside.
2. Make sure to take a picture of your child collecting twigs.
3. Place a photo frame in front of your child and have them glue twigs onto the photo frame.
4. Place photo of your child collecting the twigs into the photo frame.(1)

Handprint Tree 1

Supplies Needed:  Construction Paper, Brown and Green Crayon

1. Place a piece of Construction Paper under your child's hand.
2. Trace their hand and lower arm on paper.
3. Color the lower arm part, with a brown crayon, to make it look like a tree trunk.
4. Also, take the brown crayon and make tree branches.
5. Next, with the green crayon have them color in the leaves.(1)

Handprint Tree 2

Supplies Needed: Brown and Green Construction Paper, Scissors, glue

1. Trace your child's hand on a green piece of paper and cut it out.
2. Next, curl each finger of the cutout by rolling fingers over a pencil.
3. Then, take the brown piece of paper and cut out the tree trunk and glue on the green paper. 
4. If your child wants, they can make a bunch of these trees by gluing them onto another piece of construction paper or poster board.(1)

Marshmallow Tree

Supplies Needed: Small Marshmallows, toothpicks, plastic foam ball, green food coloring

1. Place some green food coloring in a bowl and dilute it with some water.
2. Place small marshmallow into the bowl.
3. Next, have your child poke a toothpick into each marshmallow.
4. Take the plastic foam ball and cut away part of the ball so it becomes flat. You may also use a plastic foam cone for a base.
5. Poke the free ends of the toothpick into the base to form a marshmallow tree! (1)

Wild Kingdom 

Supplies Needed: Leaves, twigs, acorns, pinecones, pine needles, bark, tacky glue, googly eyes, marker

1. Go on a nature walk with your child to collect the supplies needed.
2. With the supplies in front of your child, let them build a creature. They can make things like: fairies, elves, butterflies or other magical creatures.
3. Take small dabs of glue to keep their creatures together.
4. Add googly eyes, and use a marker to draw a nose and mouth. (2)

Nature-Walk Bracelet

Supplies Needed: Wide masking or colored electrical tape, plastic wrap, hole puncher, string, bits of nature

1. Cut a piece of wide masking or colored electrical tape to fit around your child wrist, plus one inch.
2. Have your child place pieces of nature onto the tape. 
3. With sticky tape sticky side up, fold ends under a couple of times.
4. Cover sticky side of bracelet with plastic wrap, and trim excess.
5. With a small hole puncher or needle, make one hole through each end.
6. Tie a 5-inch piece of string through each hole.
7. Tie bracelet around wrist. (3)

Mini Scarecrow

Supplies Needed: Cardboard, fabric pieces, yarn, glue stick, popsicle sticks, fine-tipped pen

1. The popsicle stick is the body of the scarecrow.
2. On a piece of cardboard, draw a long-sleeve shirt, pants and a hat for the scarecrow. Cut out the pieces.
3. Then, lay the cardboard pieces on fabric and trace around the cardboard piece.  Cut the clothes to the scarecrow out of the fabric. Keep the cardboard pieces.
4. Next, take some yarn and cut out one inch pieces, about 16 pieces, for the hands, feet, and hair of the scarecrow. 
5. Glue 4 pieces of yarn to the cardboard pieces for each hand and foot. Glue 4 pieces on the top of the popsicle for hair.
6. Then, glue the fabric pieces onto the cardboard pieces. You can glue little squares onto the pants to make it look like patches on the pants.
7. Next, glue the clothes and hat onto the popsicle stick.
8. Use a marker to draw the face onto the scarecrow.(4)

Paper Bag Scarecrow

Supplies Needed: Colored Markers, plain lunch-size paper bag, white crayon or chalk, stapler, raffia or yarn

1. Lay a lunch bag flat in front of your child.  
2. Let them draw eyes, nose(triangle), mouth, round circle for cheeks. 
3. Draw black half-inch lines down the middle of the bag on the face side.  
4. You may fill the bag with newspaper, wadded up paper or leave it empty. 
5. Roll the bag, down toward the front and staple it.
6. Place raffia or yarn on top over the stapler for hair and staple it in place.

Pinecone Owls

Supplies Needed: Pinecones, tacky glue, googly eyes, cardboard, yarn, brown and yellow felt

1. Cut out little triangles out of yellow felt for the beak of the owls.
2. Cut out little triangles out of the brown felt for the ears of the owls.
3. Glue the ears and beaks onto the pinecones.
4. Next, glue 2 googly eyes onto each owl for eyes.
5. Glue pieces of yarn onto the a round piece of cardboard to make a nest.
6. Finally, glue the owls into their nest. 
7. Glue more yarn, around the owls.
8. If you have easter grass still, you can use that instead of yarn.
9. Also, you don't have to glue the owls onto anything and just use the owls for your child to play with.

Pinecone Rabbit

Supplies Needed: 1 1/2" white pom-pom, 3 1/2" pink pom-pom, 3/8" black pom-pom, 12" pipe cleaner, pink felt, scissors, glue, cardboard, pinecone, 2" or taller

1. Make feet for the rabbit out of the cardboard.  Make sure they stay connected together,  it will help the rabbit stay standing up. The bigger the feet the better it will stay standing.
2. Take your feet and lay them on pink felt and trace.  Cut out the piece of felt and glue it to the piece of cardboard feet. Glue the pinecone on top of the feet. If you have trouble keeping the pinecone standing up, you may have to make sure it has a flat bottom.  You may also have to use a hot glue gun to help too.
3. Also, cut out little hands of the pink felt too.
4. Glue 2 of the pink pom-poms onto the white pom-pom to make checks for the rabbit.
5. Next, Glue the black pom-pom in between the pink pom-poms to make the nose.
6. Glue the eyes onto the rabbit.
7. Take the pipe cleaner and cut it in half.  Then bend each cut pipe cleaner in half.  Twist the bottom together a little. And glue them onto the head of the rabbit.
8. Glue the head of the rabbit onto the top of the pinecone.
9. Finally, glue the hands(felt) and tail(pink pom-pom) onto the pinecone.

Baby Owl

Supplies Needed: Construction paper (white, black, orange, brown, tan), glue

1. Cut a half moon shape out of tan or brown construction paper. Place it down like a smile to form the head.
2. Cut two black circles  and glue them in the center of two white circles to make eyes.
3. Cut a diamond from construction paper, fold in half to form a triangle for the beak and glue it in the center
4. Cut two orange feet and glue them on.
5. Finally, glue the owl onto another piece of paper.  
6. You can make a background if your child would like. (5)

Owl Family

Supplies Needed: Brown paper bag, construction paper, yarn, 4 pinecones, light weight cardboard, pencil, hole puncher

1. To make the mama owl, draw a heart, using a pencil, on a 8x 10 piece of cardboard.  Take the pencil, starting from the indent of the heart draw a smile on both sides.  You can now erase the top part of the heart(bumps).  You should now have a shape like an owl.  Cut out the owl.
2. Trace the owl head onto a brown paper bag. Cut and glue onto cardboard piece.
3. Cut out big white round eyes and also cut black circles, a little smaller than the white circles,  glue the black circles onto the white circles.  Can also cut 2 real little white moon shapes and glue onto black circles.
4. Punch a hole at the top between the eyes, and loop a yarn through for a hanger.
5. Glue eyes and a beak on each of four pinecones to make little owls. 
6. Glue a piece a yarn to the top of each pinecone.  Or you may tie the piece of yarn around the top of the pinecone.
7. Punch two holes on each side of the big owl's beak.  
8. Tie the other end of the string from the baby owls through the hole in the mama owl.

Floppy Scarecrow

Supplies Needed: Small wooden spools (17), yarn, tiny straw hat, wiggle eyes, red permanent marker, red and blue paint

1. Paint eight small wooden spools blue and nine red.  Let dry.  Leave one spool unpainted.
2. Cut eight strands of yarn, and knot them together at one end. Thread all yarn pieces through the unpainted spool. (You may need to use a chenille stick to help thread the yarn through.)
3. Separate the strands(two for each arm and four for the body). Thread three red spools onto each arm and onto the middle body strands.  Thread four blue spools onto each leg made of two strands.  Knot each arm and leg and fray the yarn ends.
4. Glue a hat to the top of the head and wiggle eyes onto the face.  Let dry.
5. Use a permanent marker to draw a smile.

Finger Print Tree

Supplies Needed: Construction paper, finger paint(green, brown, red)

1. Let your child pick out a light colored piece of construction paper, try to stay away from green, brown, red.
2. Place the piece of construction paper vertical.
3. Have your child dip their fingers lightly into the brown paint to make a tree trunk. Try to make it look like fingerprints.
4. Next, let them dip the fingers into the green paint to form the top of the tree.
5. They may make little brown branches if they want.
6. Then, they can dip their finger into the red paint to make little red apples for their tree.
7. If your child wants to they can make green fingerprint grass, a yellow fingerprint sun, fingerprint birds, clouds, house, a little dog or cat. The ideas are endless.

Indian Corn Art

Supplies Needed: Indian corn, construction paper or cardboard, glue

1. Give your child a couple cobs of indian corn and let them take each kernel off the cob.
2. Next, let your child use the indian corn to make their own art work by letting them glue it onto construction paper.

Craft-Stick Scarecrow

Supplies Needed: Craft sticks, wood circle, construction paper, wiggle eyes, red permanent marker, red and black paint, glue

1. Paint 4 craft sticks red and 2 craft sticks black. Let dry.
2. Then, glue 2 red sticks on top of the black sticks about half way down. To form the body of the scarecrow.
3. Next, toward the top of the two red sticks glue a red stick on each side to form arms.
4. Glue, the wood circle on the top of the two red sticks. 
5. Glue on wiggle eyes and draw the rest of the face.
6. Draw a hat for the scarecrow out of construction paper and glue on top of the head.
7. If you want, you could glue yarn on the head before you put the hat on.

Leaf People

Supplies Needed: Silk Leaves, Craft foam (red, yellow, or orange), marker, gogglie eyes

1. Take two leaves and glue them stem to stem. To form the body.
2. Cut out 2 arms and legs for the leaf person and glue them onto the leaf body.
3. Glue the gogglie eyes onto the head
4. Draw a nose and mouth to make the rest of the face.

Handprint Wreath

Supplies Needed: Craft foam(brown, red, yellow, and orange), construction paper, paper plate, glue, yarn and acorns.

1. Cut out the center of a paper plate.
2. Have your child trace their hand on different color foam pieces or construction paper. 
3. Cut out handprints.
4. Cover the paper plate by gluing handprints all over the plate.
5. Next, punch some holes into the top of the inside plate.  
6. Cut pieces of yarn, long enough to hang inside of plate.
7. Tie one end of the yarn to an acorn and the other end through the punched holes.
8. The acorns will now hang down from the inside of the plate.
9. This is cute hanging on their door or the front door (if made with the foam pieces).

Pom Pom Animals

Pom-Pom Animals(Owls, Squirrel, Bunny, Skunk) (found at Wal-mart)(found mine in clearance section)

Where I found some of these crafts:

(1) The Kids' Enclopedia Of Things To Make And Do by Richard Michael Rasmussen/Ronda Lee Rasmussen

(2)Family Fun Magazine  October 2008

(3)Good Things for Kids Magazine by Martha Stewart

(4)Family Fun Boredom Book

(5)127 Anytime Crafts Kids Can Make by Highlights for Children

Check out supply list for Activities

Food/Snack Ideas:  

Spaghetti Squash

Supplies Needed: Spaghetti Squash, Spaghetti Sauce

Directions:

For a great recipe click here

    

Autumn Party Mix

Supplies Needed:  Candy Corn, Peanuts, Chocolate Chips 

Directions:

• Mix all the supplies together and enjoy.  Tastes like a chocolate payday.

Edible Necklace

Supplies Needed: Shoestring licorice, apple jacks

Directions:

1. Give your child the supplies and tell them to take a piece of shoestring licorice and thread the apple jacks onto the licorice.  When your child is done tie the necklace around your child's neck.  
2. They can eat the apple jacks right off the licorice, then eat the licorice.

Colorful Goldfish Crackers, just like the beautiful fall colors

Leaf Cheese Sandwiches

Supplies Needed: Leaf Cookie Cutter (Wal-Mart has them), bread, cheese slices

Directions:

1. Place a piece of cheese in between two pieces of bread
2. Have your child take the leaf cookie cutter and press down on the sandwiches to form the leaf shape.
3. Enjoy!

Leaf Piles

Supplies Needed: 4(5) cups of Corn Flakes, 2  6oz pkg. Butterscotch Chips, 1/2 cup Peanut Butter, Waxed Paper

Directions:

1. Melt chips and peanut butter in large microwave safe bowl or on stove. Watch Closely.  Just be very careful not to burn. The peanut butter will burn first.  When the chips look like they are almost melted, stop and stir. Try a minute in the microwave and check.
2. When stirring together the chips will melt a little.  
3. Mix in 4 cups of  cornflakes in with the chips. 
4. If it looks like there is a lot of mix, stir in another cup of corn flakes
5. Drop in little piles on wax paper. 
6. Let it cool.
7. Makes 36 heaping TSPS. 

Ants On A Log

Supplies Needed: Celery, Cream Cheese or Peanut Butter and Raisins

Directions:

1. Clean celery and cut them in 6 inch pieces
2. Fill the celery pieces with Cream Cheese or Peanut Butter
3. Top with Raisins
4. Your child can help you fill the celery and top with raisins.  They love doing this and since they helped, most likely they will eat it too.

Nuts

Chili and Cornbread (Crockpot)

Supplies Needed: 2 to 3 cans of Chili Beans or Kidney Beans, 2 cans of Tomato Soup, 2 cans of Diced Tomatoes(italian style), 1 to 2 pounds of Hamburger or Lean Ground Turkey, Chili Seasoning Mix, Chili Powder, Shredded Cheese, Sour Cream, Salsa

Directions:

1. Brown the meat in a skillet and drain the grease
2. Put the meat into a crockpot or slow cooker
3. Add the beans, soup and tomatoes into the crockpot
4. Add the Chili Seasoning Mix
5. Mix all together
6. Turn crockpot on Low and cook 4 to 6 hours. It may also be turned on high for 2 to 4 hours.
7. There are many ways to eat your chili.  You can add chili powder, cheese, sour cream and/or salsa on top.  Cornbread is great dipping in your chili or placing in your chili. 
8. There is a easy box mix that can be purchased at stores and it takes a a few minutes to make.  I love to make cupcakes with mine.  
9. There is also cornbread crackers that Town House Bistro makes that is great too.
10. Kids may love to add their goldfish crackers to theirs.

Corn on the Cob

Corn Chips and Salsa

Autumn! Week 5 October 4-10