Last Minute Fall Crafts

Well friends!  We're getting a little bit of Sandy in Northern Ohio today!  High winds, rain, and power outages are throughout the area which means school has been closed!  I haven't lost power yet, so I wanted to share a few quick and easy projects with you before Halloween!

Here's a Jack-o-Lantern we made a few weeks ago...super easy and very "telling".

Here's what you'll need:

Construction Paper:

9x12-inch black rectangle for the background

1x2-inch brown rectangle for the stem

a ton of 1/2x12-inch orange strips for the pumpkin

Scraps of yellow construction paper for the face

We started this project together by gluing an orange strip vertically and horizontally in the center of the black construction paper.  We then glued strips to form an X on top of the vertical and horizontal pieces.  The children were then told to continue gluing orange strips by overlapping them, leaving a black space between each strip (see picture above).  Some of the orange pieces will hang off of the edge of the black paper.  These can be trimmed off once the children are finished gluing all of the orange pieces.  We then glued our stem to the top of our pumpkin and used yellow construction paper from our scrap paper box to design our faces however we wanted them to look.

We also made some fall trees!

Here's what you'll need:

Construction Paper

9x12-inch blue rectangle for the background

9x12-inch brown rectangle for the tree

tons of fall colored 1-inch squares for the children to use as leaves

I whipped up a very simple tree pattern and had the children trace it onto the brown construction paper and cut it out.  We then glued the tree onto our blue background.  Each child was given a pile of squares and told to glue their leaves onto their paper.  I told them that they could glue their leaves however they wanted, but I wanted it to look "real".  Some glued them onto the branches, some made it look like the leaves were falling from the tree, and some even made leaf piles.

I like this project because even if I'm short on time, or a child doesn't completely finish their tree, it still looks good whether the tree is full of leaves or it has very few leaves on it.

I don't think I can take full credit for these projects...I think I found them in an issue of Mailbox several years ago but they work...and once you get your kiddos started on them, they can complete them on their own which gives you a second to breathe.

Miss V's Busy Bees is celebrating 500 followers...make sure you follow her blog so you can join in on her give-away!

With this unexpected day off, I have big plans for getting caught up on all of my blog stalking and if I lose power, I have a few books left over from my summer reading list that I can read!
Keep safe!