As the air turns from humid heat to crisp and cool, it seems the inner crafter in so many of us comes out. A new school year, the start of Holiday Season, and, well Pinterest makes Fall an exciting time to get elbow deep in whatever you, your kids, and again, Pinterest may dream up. My Fall Pinterest board is in full swing. Here are some easy fall toddler activities we have already had fun with this season!

 

Easy Fall Toddler Activities That Require Minimal Prep

Pumpkin Play Dough

I’ve seen a number of recipes for Pumpkin Spice Play Dough. Unfortunately, I haven’t found pumpkin spice. I have, however, found an abundance of canned pumpkin. So, I decided to do my best at making a recipe. It took some trial and error but I’m really happy with how it eventually turned out! Here is my recipe. NB I like making a lot of play dough so that both kids can play with a fair bit. Feel free to cut the recipe in 1/2 if you so choose 🙂

 

What To Use

• ½ cup pumpkin puree
• 4 cups flour (set aside ½ cup)
• 2 ½ TBS cream of tartar (buy this at a bulk store or bulk section to save money)
• ½ cup salt
• 2 TBS vegetable oil
• ½ TBS Cinnamon (optional)
• 1½ boiling water
• Yellow and red food colouring or a bit of orange paint (about 1 TBS)

What To Do

I set aside ½ a cup of flour. Taking the remaining 3 ½ cups of flour, all the dry ingredients, and the pumpkin puree, I mixed as well as I could using a wooden spoon. Then I added the boiling water. Once it had cooled, my daughter and I kneaded the dough, adding flour in as needed. We were going for a non-sticky, highly malleable consistency. If you get it to the point it has too much flour add about 1 TBS of pumpkin and kneaded until desired consistency is reached.

 

Fall Lanterns

A video posted by Alana-Parenting From The Heart (@parentfromheart) on Sep 30, 2015 at 4:02pm PDT

Thank you to Twitchetts (one of my favourite blogs) for this WONDERFUL idea. Susie made Halloween versions, I decided to take some small maple leaves to make Fall versions of hers. We will likely make some Halloween ones too.

We took a couple of dry, small, not entirely flat, maple leaves, an empty mason jar and another empty glass jar, Elmer’s glue, a very small amount of food colouring, and mixed. We painted the jars and added a little bit of Elmer’s glue to the back of the leaves to secure them. If using them outside, I recommend spraying with a varnish as the glue/ food colouring mixture is water-soluble. See the entire how-to from Twitchetts here.

 

Pumpkin Stamping

 

So simple, so great! Take mini pumpkins (we’ve also used apples), cut in half, puncture with salad forks to act as handles for the “stamps.” Take a plate and put a little bit of yellow, red, and orange paint. Then, let your kids have at ‘er!

 

Toilet Paper Roll Owls

 

What To Use

• Toilet paper rolls
• Washable paint
• Googly eyes
• Hot glue gun
• Craft feathers or coffee filters
• Tops of broken yellow crayons (I always keep our broken ones for crafting), dried corn kernels, or Captain Crunch cut diagonally for the beaks

What to Do

The kids painted their toilet paper rolls. When close to dry, I folded the top of the roll down, and put a bit of glue on it, then I folded the other half on top of the glue to make the top of the owl look Great Horned.  Then, I put two small drops of glue on the owl’s face, then my kids put on the eyes. I helped secure the beak and put the feathers on. When we haven’t had feathers, we’ve painted and used coffee filters.

 

DIY Window Clings

I wish I could take credit for this fantastic idea. All you need is a plastic smooth surface to work from, ideally (but not necessarily) cookie cutters, Elmer’s glue, a tiny bit of dish soap, and food colouring. If you want white/black use a very small amount of white paint. I recommend using a heavy hand when painting your solution to get the best results. See the original post from Teaching Mama here.

 

 

Fall Sensory Bin

Views from a Step Stool is jam-packed with educationally rich play ideas. Katie’s recent sensory bin idea is one we will definitely be trying. I love how she underscores the calming aspect of this. See her how-to here.

 

30 Second Fall Wreath

We have just moved into our first place that isn’t an apartment. And as a result, we have the great pleasure of seeing everyone’s beautiful fall wreaths displayed throughout our neighbourhood. Yesterday, I bought a wreath made from branches at Michael’s (less than $7), some faux fall leaves (less than $3), I already had the pumpkin, and the glue gun. Using a bit of hot glue on the end of each leaf, my daughter and I made an embellishment on the bottom of the wreath. Then, I glued the pumpkin in the centre, et voila! For the life of me, I couldn’t find our wreath hanger-thing so I used an actual hanger.

 

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