An Easy Fall Project to Make w/the Kiddos!

Looking for leaves in our backyard

I saw a project on a blog hop that looked fun and easy enough to do. We modified it a bit from the original idea, using poster board instead of a folder, simply because we found so many leaves we wanted to use! I can't remember which blog it was (there were so many) so if it was yours, let me know and I'm happy to link the original.

The supplies, if you want to make this yourself are easy.  You need:

Poster board

Ruler

Glue Sticks
Elmer's Glue
Scissors
Paper for Labels
Markers (one color to represent each color of leaf)
A bucket full of different colored leaves
A kid to help you find the leaves (this is the best ingredient)

The first thing we did was gather our leaves. We started in our own backyard.

We found a ton of leaves, but only green, yellow, and brown ones.  We wanted more colors so we hopped into the car and headed to the lake to look for more leaves.

Of course he had to get as close to the water as possible to look for leaves. ;)

This leaf emerged his favorite, but it was brown and we wanted colors!! 
So we put this leaf in the bucket and headed to the park.

The park did not disappoint.  Look at all those bright colors!

We passed a Dollar General Store on the way home, and decided to stop for poster board.  I let my son pick the color he wanted, and $1.06 later, we loaded back up in the car and headed home.

His choice of poster board, and a very silly face
(he gets the latter...hamming it up for the camera, from his father ;) ).

On the way home, my son fervently screamed, "Look, a purple tree mom, over there, it's purple!"  And sure enough, it was...right in front of the post office.  And so we pulled over.  Good eye, Tuck! ( <--cartoon reference for those who don't watch Wonder Pets ;) ).

Once we got home, I put him in the hot shower, it was coldie out there!!  And we relaxed a bit and then he wanted to get busy making the project.

           We organized all of the leaves by color (my son is 5 and he LOVED this part).

We sectioned off the board with the ruler, to make an even amount of space for each color of leaf.  One lesson learned here for those of us who are not very crafty...Crayola washable markers are wonderful, really, but they smudge very easily on poster board (because it's glossy) until they dry.

We cut...

& made labels 

For the labels we simply cut squares out of typing paper and then used markers the same colors as the leaves to write their names out.  Brown for brown, orange for orange, etc.  Little man is just learning to spell sight words, so he gave me the colors, and I wrote them out.

Then we glued the labels (with the glue sticks) and carefully put them into place.

We put Elmer's Glue on the back of the leaves and held them in place a few seconds to make sure they would stick.

This was serious stuff and I let little man take over for this job.

And here he is putting the last red leaf into place.

Then he held up his project for me to take a picture.

We let it dry overnight, but not before he wanted me to take 'one more picture.'

It was a very easy project to make (hurray! because my craftiness is very limited...not by choice!), and it was a lot of fun!

My son and I had a LOT of fun making this little project, and it's now hanging on the corridor wall, welcoming anyone who walks through the front door.