Pumpkin Seed Tree

A few days ago we painted some of the pumpkin seeds we'd scooped from our Halloween pumpkins.  They were dry, so today we used them for a Pumpkin Seed Tree craft.

I cut the trees freehand from construction paper; the kids glued their pumpkin seed "leaves" all over the trees.

Simple crafts are good.

Handprint Turkey

Lily had been asking for about two hours to do a turkey craft, but I didn't feel like pulling out the paint so I couldn't find one on Pinterest to fit the bill. (Though I did find other crafts that used elements of this one, because hey, this is glue and construction paper, not rocket science.)

So, I decided that instead of making paint handprints, we'd trace the hands and turn this into a construction paper and glue craft.

I traced the kids' hands on orange construction paper (How do we have NO brown construction paper?!  How can a pack of construction paper contain NO brown?!  But I digress..)  I decided to make a left and a right, so there would be two turkeys on the finished craft.  Then I snipped out various colors of construction paper into basic feather shapes. Lily and Jack each chose a background color of paper, and I drew two dots to show them where they should glue their feathers.  I think if I had it to do over, I'd draw lines going out from the dot and tell them to put their feathers on the line.  It would just make it easier.  Anyway, they pasted down a few feathers for each turkey, and then I helped them to glue their handprint on top.  We added beaks and google eyes, and they each drew little turkey legs.

With a little more prep beforehand (cutting out the feathers, getting the google eyes etc) this craft would have gone more smoothly.  But I was happy with how it turned out, and the kids got their turkey craft. :)

Autumn Trees

 
 This is similar to lots of other crafts out there, though I didn't get it from a particular site.  I cut a tree trunk freehand from some construction paper, and supplied each kid with glue and a pile of squares cut from some of their painting projects. (They like to cover the whole paper; I've used this in other crafts too.  Nice texture.)  It was a simple craft, but fun to see where they decided to put their "leaves."

Finished Ladybugs

Yesterday we painted the paper and plastic plates for our ladybug craft. Today we finished!  The original post used fabric for the dots and ladybug faces, as well as giant googly eyes.  We went with what we had on hand: black construction paper.  They turned out great. (And, of course, the kids insisted that the ladybugs needed smiles...)  Now we have a whole family of little ladybugs!