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Three Fun & Easy Fall Craft Ideas for Elementary Students

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Three Fun & Easy Fall Craft Ideas for Elementary Students
By Amber Bailey September 24, 2019
Fall is a time to celebrate friends, family and gratitude. This time of year, everyone is eager to watch the leaves turn bright shades of red and orange. Fall is a terrific season to engage young children in storytelling and sharing. Fall can inspire wonderful lessons about culture and tradition, and even science. Why DO the leaves change colors anyway? Our fun, easy craft ideas will immerse your kids in learning about the autumn season and fall holidays.

These fall craft festivities can be created in the classroom or made at home. For distance learners have your students send in pictures or show you via video call. You can make distance learning feel hands on with these cute at home crafts!

Fun Fall Foliage DIY Leaves

The first day of Autumn is in late September. (This year it fell on September 22nd) If you are back in the classroom kick off the fall season by having your students decorate your school-room with colorful leaves. Our easy fall foliage paper crafts will inspire your students to understand why leaves change color in the fall. Your classroom will look bright and festive too!

All you need to make fall craft leaves is:

  • Construction paper (white or in fall colors)
  • Markers and/or crayons
  • Fall foliage stamps
  • String/yarn
  • Scissors
  • Hole Puncher

Each student can stamp a leaf onto a square sheet of craft or construction paper. Once they color their leaf with crayon or marker, they can cut it to its leaf shape, and punch a hole. Use a long piece of string to attach each student’s leaf. String your new fall foliage craft leaves around your bulletin board, the front of your desk, or across the chalkboard.

You and your students can enjoy the festive colors, and you can help them understand the reason that the leaves change in hue.

“Because of changes in the length of daylight and changes in temperature, the leaves stop their food-making process. The chlorophyll breaks down, the green color disappears, and the yellow to orange colors become visible and give the leaves part of their fall splendor.” ³

Have the students color their leaves a range of hues, from green to yellow, orange and red. Hang them in order of the way they would change color over the fall season. Get even more in depth and have your class try this leaf science experiment! ²

Halloween Show and Tell (Or Show and Treat!)

What would fall be without Halloween? Each year kids look forward to dressing up as their favorite characters and villains and hitting their neighborhood streets in search of candy. You can easily bring some of this fun and tradition into the classroom by hosting a post-Halloween show and tell. For distance learners, have a fun dress up day over your video calls!

First, the week before Halloween, get the students excited to share their story with their classmates. Have them decorate small paper treat bags with fun Halloween stamps.

Goofy Jackolantern Stamp SimplyStamps.com Mr. Goofy Jack O' Lantern Stamp

Here’s what your kids will need to make Halloween "show and treat" bags:

During the school week following Halloween, throw a trick or treat show and tell party! Give each kid a few minutes to share his or her favorite trick or treating or Halloween moment. Once each student completes his or her story, he or she selects the next story-teller to come up and share.

This lesson will help students think about their classmates as they hunt for candy on Halloween, and will help them share their findings in a thoughtful way.

Dia de Los Muertos DIY Marigolds & Sugar Skull Crafts

Your students are most likely familiar with sugar skulls, but do they understand their cultural significance? During the fall season, take the chance to show your kids the meaning of Dia de Los Muertos, or The Day of the Dead. Each year, this Mexican holiday starts on or around November 1st.

This year it will be celebrated starting on October 31st and ending on November 2nd. During Dia de Los Muertos, Mexican people show their respect for loved ones and ancestors who have passed on. It’s a festive and joyful holiday known for bright flowers, candy, treats, sugar skulls and other celebratory gifts that are left as offerings to the deceased. This post-Halloween holiday can spark fun classroom lessons and crafts for elementary school students and help them learn about Mexican and Hispanic heritage.

Source: Tinkerlab.com

Help your class create bold yellow marigold flowers ¹ with three common craft items:

Gift wrap tissue paper

Pipe cleaners

Scissors

Once each student has created a marigold, have him or her make a simple but festive sugar skull card or paper craft to accompany each flower.

For this, you will need:

A sugar skull stamp and ink

Craft paper or construction paper

Scissors

Yard/string

Hole puncher

The sugar skull cards can be cut into simple square or round shapes, or the students can get more festive and cut them into skull shapes.

Sugar Skull Stamp SimplyStamps.com Sugar Skull Craft Stamp

Once each student has created a marigold and a sugar skull card, they can help decorate the classroom or make shift desk at home. Yarn or string can be used to hang these beautiful Day of the Dead crafts over doorways or across the front of desks and tables. Simply punch a hole in the cards to attach the string. The pipe cleaners can easily be used to tie the marigolds onto the string. Adorn your classroom with bold flowers and skulls!

Share with your students the significance of Dia de Los Muertos and Hispanic Heritage Month with storytelling, fun arts and crafts lessons and ink stamps, all from SimplyStamps.com.

Teachers love our rubber stamps! From Halloween and fall stamps to Spanish teacher stamps, you’ll find thousands of stamps in our selection. Use the code below to save on your order.

Check our blog and How To Resource Center often. You'll find helpful guides on how to use stamps along with fun craft ideas!

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Classic Teaching Methods that Work

Sources:

1. tinkerlab.com/simple-paper-marigolds-dia-de-los-muertos

2. howweelearn.com/science-experiments-for-kids/Fall

3. www.esf.edu/pubprog/brochure/leaves/leaves.htm