Perfect for at-home or hybrid learning, these Autumn Leaf Animal Collages will bring color and creativity to your fall lesson plans! Simple and easy, this engaging arts and crafts activity is a wonderful way to welcome in the fall season while exploring the changes that take place during this time of the year. Children will love collecting fall leaves and transforming them into unique works of art they can show off to family and friends!
What Is An Autumn Leaf Animal Collage?
Made of colorful fall leaves, Autumn Leaf Animal Collages are an easy arts and crafts activity that allows children to express their creativity while exploring what makes fall so fun! Simply send children on a nature hunt to collect any leaves that catch their eye, arrange and combine them in unique ways, and create new animal friends using the shapes of the leaves as inspiration. These collages encourage children to look at the world differently, from the leaves they collect to the animals they're inspired to create, imagination and creativity are needed every step of the way.
How Can I Use This In My Lesson Plan?
Making Autumn Leaf Animal Collages is the perfect way to explore colorful fall leaves through art. Since collecting fall leaves is the perfect foundation for numerous lesson plans and activities for all ages—like exploring why leaves change their color—this activity can easily be expanded for more fall fun!
For older children, leaf-focused outdoor science explorations, and STEAM activities like this one, are a wonderful way to reinforce lessons on the scientific method as you work as a classroom to hypothesize, predict, and observe why leaves change in the fall and record those results in creative ways like journaling or arts and crafts activities!
On the other hand, infants and toddlers are just discovering what makes fall special and different from the rest of the year. They look at changing leaves with a sense of wonder and curiosity, which provides you with a number of opportunities to engage infants and toddlers with developmentally appropriate fall activities such as fall-themed sensory explorations and story times. Why leaves change their color might be rooted in science, but that doesn't mean you're limited in your classroom to only science learning!
Download our FREE printable below!
Required Materials:
- Colorful Autumn Leaves
- Tape
- Construction Paper
- Scissors
- Pen or Marker
1Gather Your Materials
Send children outside to collect colorful fall leaves! Encourage them to pick up leaves of all sizes, shapes, and colors for their unique masterpieces.
2Create Your Collage
Have children pick their favorite leaves from their collection and help them cut up, arrange, and tape down the leaves they've chosen to create fun animal shapes.
3Bring Your Collages To Life!
Encourage children to get creative and use their imaginations to transform their leaf collages into animal friends. For example, if the leaves you've arranged look like wings, draw a friendly face and antennae to make a colorful fall butterfly.
Encourage creativity with engaging arts and crafts activities! Browse our selection of related activities to incorporate creative explorations into your home or classroom.