Autumn Royalty: Make Leaf Crowns

Leaves are a playful and abundant material to use to make homemade crowns! Celebrate the fall season this year and encourage your child to make use of the natural materials that surround her with this autumn-inspired craft activity. Make leaf crowns out of nothing more than some freshly fallen leaves and some imagination! Help your preschooler build her fine motor skills and learn about Autumn leaves by making leaf crowns.

What You Need:

• Lots of recently fallen leaves with stems
• Basket to hold the leaves

What to Do:

1. Go outside and spend some time with your child gathering fallen leaves that you'll use to make your crowns. Note: Very dry, brittle leaves will disintegrate quickly so try to collect fairly large, freshly fallen leaves.
2. Once you and your child have collected your fallen leaves, it's time to make your crowns! Take two leaves and remove the stem from one one of them at its base. Overlap the top tip of one leaf with the base of the other leaf and use the stem to attach the two leaves by pushing it down through the place where the two leaves overlap and back up through the hole again, like a straight pin. Your child can help you do this part.  It's a little bit tricky for little hands, but it's great for developing those fine motor skills.
3. Continue to attach the leaves to each other in this way. Try the crown on your child's head as you go along and when it's big enough, attach the last leaf to the first in the same way.  You made a crown!
4. You can make a leaf crown for each member of the family if you like. Encourage your child's imaginative play by helping her think of different characters she can be with her leaf crown: A member of a leaf family, Princess Fall, Queen Autumn, etc.
5. The children join in the activity by bringing you more leaves, removing the stems or, with the older children, making their own crowns, with assistance if needed.

While you're making the crowns, take the opportunity to talk to your child about the fall season (also known as Autumn) and the changing leaves that come along with it each year. As an extension of this activity, you and your child can make leaf crowns or garlands to decorate your house for the season. This is one of those great activities that is just as simple as it is fun.

Some Key Words:

• Stem
• Leaf
• Autumn