Autumn Leaves

Since having Isla, I've been really conscious of not spending as much quality time with Tommy. I knew this would be inevitable, particularly as I'm breastfeeding and no one else can do that bit for me. A newborn takes a heck of a lot of feeding and changing and these two activities seem to take up the majority of the day, leaving me little time to spend doing the things I love most with Tommy. I've lost count of the number of times I've told him to wait a minute and those minutes have often turned into an hour! Because of this, I've really tried to set aside time to spend with Tommy on his own, whether it be to go out to the park for an hour or doing a craft activity indoors.

Tommy is really observant and he's constantly taking in everything around him. He has been telling me all about how the leaves on the trees have changed colour and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to do lots of activities to do with Autumn (I know we're nearly into Winter but hey ho). I've been meaning to work on somewhere to display artwork he produces, a washing line or some such device in his bedroom but I just haven't got round to it yet. Most of the time, drawings and paintings from nursery get stashed in the nearest cupboard/drawer or get put on the fridge only to get splattered by a muddy dog and ruined. This being the case, I decided on a temporary measure - to make something to display on his bedroom window.

I found this activity somewhere on the Internet or Pinterest (I can't remember where now). It's both very easy to prepare and easy for a child to produce on their own. I'm all for children being able to complete a task/activity with very little guidance from an adult. It makes them both independent and confident.

You need some sticky-backed plastic (old School Blue Peter I know!), black card or paper, scissors, a pencil (a bright colour that's show up on black and square pieces of yellow, red and orange tissue paper).

The first step is to draw several leaf outlines on the black piece of card. It is quite nice to use different-shaped leaves. We went on an autumnal walk and collected a variety to draw inspiration from.

 

 

Draw a separate outline around the outside (about 1-2cm) of the leaf shape and then cut out the inside and around the outside.

 

 

Stick the templates onto the sticky side of the sticky-backed plastic.

 

 

 

Then stick the tissue paper pieces to the sticky-backed plastic, overlapping them a little to ensure no gaps are left (it doesn't matter too much if they do). The final step is to stick more sticky-backed plastic to the top and cut around the black outline one final time. Here are our finished leaves. They'll brighten up even the darkest of autumn days don't you think?