Creative Play Ideas - Autumn Leaves

Amy Godfrey
2 days ago
4 min read

A young Eldest Sonshine here with his gorgeous Autumn leaf rainbow

Today we're talking about a truly beautiful way to connect with the truest artist of them all: Mother Nature!

Here we celebrate the incredible spectacle that is the changing the Autumn leaves.

Autumnophiles unite!

Another simple and accessible creative activity for you to make memories with those around you.

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WHO IS THIS FOR?

This activity is appopriate for almost every age, supervised, and unsupervised for low-care needs children from about 5 or 6 I would say. No sharp tools are needed here and no toxic substances, though if you know your child may put the glue in their mouth, obviously stay with them.

SENSORY STUFF

This activity is great for both sensory seekers and avoiders - yes, really!

There is the wonderful sensory element to gathering the leaves out in the fresh air, the crunching of the leaves under boot, the smell of the earthy leaves, the look of the colours, the feel of them as you pick them up.

TIPS FOR TACTILE SENSITIVE / SENSORY AVOIDERS:

If you have sensory avoiders who dislike anything wet, make use of gloves or litter pickers to collect your leaves.
For those who dislike the feel of glue, and if you don't have tape, use long-handled applicators/brushes to apply the glue.

HOW TO PLAY

Pick a day when you can dedicate some time to gathering leaves.

We prefer a dry day but the saying goes "There' no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes!" And to that I agree for the most part; if you have appropriate clothing, most weathers are grand for outdoor activities in my opinion.

Saying that of course, if you have anyone in the family who is immunocompromised for example, better to choose a dry, fair day.

Bring with you a plastic carrier bag to collect the leaves, and I also recommend some waterproof gloves if you've any sensory sensitivity in the group.

Start collecting!

Note: Please do not pick leaves from trees or bushes, gather only what has fallen to the ground.

Once you've gathered your beautiful haul, if you have the space to dedicate for a few hours, spread out the leaves on a table to dry. Otherwise you can give them a dab/wipe with some kitchen roll.

Sort them into matching colours.

(You'll see in the image here that we also gathered some cones and conkers, there were a few feathers as well. See the image at the end to see why!)

Next, prepare your wall or table to stick on the leaves. There are options here.
- What we tend to do is use fairly low-tack sticky tape (paper tape is what we use nowadays) and fold over each end of a long strip and stick it to the wall. Our paint has never been removed doing this, but it's important you don't use really tough tape or leave it up for more than a couple of hours.
  - You could also use masking tape, though some leaves may have a harder time staying stuck to it.
- You could use sticky-backed plastic
- Or you can also use a table or the floor to lay out a large sheet of paper and use good old PVA/stick/mod podge glue.

roll the ends over to stick tape to the wall sticky side out

We do 4 strips of tape for green, orange, yellow and red leaves, but you can do as many as you like

For younger children or those with higher support needs, start off each row of tape for them with one leaf of each colour so that they can match the other leaves in the haul to the one already up.

Each time we've done this it has created a beautifully calm, focussed energy for my boys (and me!) even pulling us out of bad moods and stressful states.

The great thing about using paper tape is that once you've done this and taken your photos, you can peel the leaves off and use them for other activities! It doesn't harm or harm the paint or leave any sticky residue (in our experience. As I said earlier, we don't keep ours up for more than a few hours.)