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.

Leaf Craft

I wanted a nice little leaf template for the kids to use to make a fall leaf craft.  Here's a good leaf template.  

The other day, the kids had had a lot of fun painting--and for them, that generally means covering the entire surface with paint.  So, I cut those paintings into strips and they used their scissors to snip them into squares.  Then they glued the squares into the leaf.  I liked how the painted paper gave the leaves some texture.  They really enjoyed this craft! 

Straw Mosaics

Someone on Pinterest posted a craft that involved hot-gluing straws onto paper to make three-dimensional straw mosaics.  (Of course, I can't find it now.  I'll post it later if I do.)  However, arming my kids with hot glue just doesn't seem very...prudent.  So, here's our take on straw mosaics.

Each child had his or her own bottle of Elmer's, and they shared a pile of straws of various colors which I had snipped into different lengths.  They glued them to the paper in all sorts of designs.  We even tried making letters with them.  This was a simple, fun craft.  I recommend using cardstock or heavy paper to support the glue and straws.