Fall or Autumn Preschool Leaf Mural: Creative Activity for Toddlers

Creative activities for the children in your child care center should foster creative development. Creative activities should promote expression, encourage spontaneity in material usage, and introduce children to textured materials.

A leaf mural is a creative activity that supports creative development and teaches children in child day care centers about seasons. Begin by introducing the children to the concepts of autumn/fall. Read age appropriate board books and picture books that feature the season fall. Take the children on a nature walk. Discuss the signs and symbols of autumn. Let the children collect fall items like leaves, acorns and pine cones. Discuss the colors, textures, smells. Bring them back to the class and sort all of the items. You may save these items for other fall crafts.

Fall Mural Materials

Large and small leaf patterns (several for each child)
Construction paper
A variety of tempura paint in fall colors (gold, brown, orange, and red) in shallow dishes
Painting sponges
Coarse salt
Bulletin board letters which spell “It’s Autumn” Or “Welcome to Fall”
Bulletin board

Activity Preparation

Cut out leaf patterns
Cover the craft table in butcher paper
Distribute leaf cutouts and stamps
Put paint in shallow dishes
Add salt to the paint and mix well

Activity Procedures
Invite the children over to the craft table. Let them know they will be creating a leaf mural. Demonstrate how to dip the sponges in the paint and sponge paint the leaves. Let the sponge paint their leaf cutouts. Arrange the leaves randomly on the bulletin board. Add the bulletin board title of your choice.

Autumn Leaf Mural Lesson Objectives

Objective 1
To provide the opportunity for expressive activities through by allowing children to create designs on leaves using a sponge.
Verbal Cue A: Today we are going to color the leaves!
Verbal Cue B: I have lots of colors for you to use the leaves to make a design.

Objective 2
To encourage spontaneity in material usage by allowing the children to choose colors and to mix the colors they choose
Verbal Cue A: Which colors would you like to use first?
Verbal Cue B: I like the way you have chosen your colors!

Objective 3
To introduce textured materials by adding coarse salt to the paint to be used by the children.
Verbal Cue A: Would you like to add salt to the paint?
Verbal Cue B: Let’s see what it looks and feels like after we add salt to the paint.

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Tags: autumn, creative arts, daycare activities, preschool curriculum

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Activites, Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.