Crafts with Fall Leaves

I recently found the book, “Look What I Did With a Leaf” by Morteza E. Sohi.   The book shows beautiful creations assembled simply from different sizes, shapes, and colors of leaves. The weather has been beautiful so we were inspired to take a little walk around our local park to find our own collection of leaves. We first used our leaves for some leaf rubbings.   We tried rubbings with just the leaves alone but I found that laminated leaves worked much better for leaf rubbings. Before laminating leaves, let them dry completely for a week or so to be sure that all of the moisture is out of them. Laminated leaves are great for leaf rubbings because they are flatter and fit more smoothly under the paper, they don’t crumble apart as they are rubbed on, they are easy to store, and they last for years of fun leaf rubbings. Leaf rubbings are an easy craft for toddlers but still fun for elementary age children.   Simply put down your leaf on the table (you might want to tape it to the table to keep it from moving around), cover it with a piece of paper, and rub over the leaf with the side of a crayon. It’s fun to use different leaves and different colors to create a beautiful work of art as colorful as Fall itself. We then went back to the book that initially prompted our fun with fall leaves.   Both of my children had fun building colorful creations with different leaves.   They simply used a glue stick to adhere the leaves to their paper to make cute animals and leaf people. Fall leaves are fun to collect and fun to create with.   What do your children like to do with Fall leaves?