Fall Leaf Painting

Fall is a beautiful time of year. I love how the leaves change colors to brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows.

There’s something about the colorful leaves that speaks to my soul. Is it because of the change in seasons?

(I know it’s NOT because I have to rake and rake and rake said leaves up off my lawn and driveway!)

I have a very simple fall leaf painting activity that you can do with your grandkids. It’s really easy to prepare for — and the kids love doing it. It’s a winner!

Here is a list of items that you need:

• red, yellow, and orange acrylic craft paint
• Q-tips
• something to squirt paint onto
• aprons to protect clothing
• my free printable of a bare tree

(Please disregard how messy my paint bottles are. They are well used!!)

Now for the directions. Print off a copy of the bare tree for each of your grandchildren.

Squirt a little bit of paint onto either a plastic lid from a whipped topping container or onto some wax paper.

Give the  kids a handful of Q-tips. Explain that they dip the end of the Q-tip in the paint and then daub it on the paper to make the polka dot leaves.

Then, let them paint to their heart’s content.

If your grandkids are right-handed, put the paint on their right side so that they don’t have to reach across their painting to dip their Q-tip into the paint. If they have to reach, invariably they will get paint all up and down their arm. (Don’t ask me why I know this. )

While I envisioned that their end product would be similar to the picture at the beginning of this post, I did tell them they could do whatever they wanted to do. I’m all for them expressing themselves creatively with as little ‘boundaries’ as possible.

Here is their end product.

As they painted, I noticed that Adrianna kept looking over at what her brother was doing. He was intent on doing his own thing and didn’t pay her any attention.

She, on the other hand, followed him. If he painted something in the corner, so did she. If he painted a big swirl of red paint, so did she. (I’ve noticed this phenomenon with younger siblings being a copy-cat of their older sibling.) Regardless, they both had lots of fun.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This would be a wonderful activity that you could do with your grandkids either while they are waiting for the turkey to cook or after the meal is over and they are wanting something to do.