Leaf Activities That Don’t Use Real Leaves

The other day I shared some crafts involving fall leaves, but there are a lot of fun leaf-related activities that don’t use real leaves, so I wanted to share some of those, too.

Like these watercolor leaves from The Artful Parent. These are so pretty and would be great to make a garland or decorate the table for Thanksgiving. You could experiment with different kinds of paper, combine watercolors and crayons, use an eyedropper to apply liquid watercolors — there are lots of different ways to play with this one!

Because I’m a knitter of course I love any project that involves yarn, so this fall leaf lacing craft from Our Kid Things is right up my alley. The multicolored yarn they used is a lot of fun, or stick with fall colors. Either way it’s a great fine motor skill activity!

Using leaf shapes to make other crafts is a great way to incorporate leaves into the classroom without having to use actual leaves. For little kids this sensory painting activity from Kids Craft Room would be a lot of fun (I think this would be fun for some older kids and adults, too, to be honest) and makes a fun and easy decoration.

Of course leaf activities don’t just have to be crafts. Check out this great leaf matching game from Made to be a Momma. These leaves are so cute and after you’ve prepped the game you can play it over and over with no prep. Use fewer sets for younger kids and the full set for older ones.

You can also use leaf shapes in all sorts of learning activities, like in this fall leaf number tower activity from Fun Learning for Kids. There are leaves with single numbers on them that kids can use to stack cubes on in one-to-one correspondence, as well as ones that show dots like dice so kids can add up the numbers to build their stacks.

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Leaf Reading and Writing Activities

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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Have you read?

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