I love using contact paper for murals. I did zero instruction during this fall art for kids activity. My daughter counted pom poms, called out colors, and even noticed the size difference of the pom poms. Your child may not label all this learning and verbally clue you into what they are learning but trust me they aren’t just mindlessly adding them. They notice the different textures, they connect the colors to the changing colors outside ( our maple tree is already home to many red leaves), and they create! They are learning even when we don’t say a word.

Gather your materials. You will need some contact paper, painter’s tape, pom poms in fall leaf colors in various sizes if possible, and something to pop them in.

Start by attaching the contact paper to a wall or window.

Draw a bare tree on it with a permanent marker.

Place the pom poms where your child can reach them and invite them to create.

She invited her dad to play too.  They played a game where he’d give her a number and she’d add that many pom poms.

After  while I was cooking dinner she took them all off noting that the pom poms left “fuzz prints” but only if they were stuck on for ” a little bit of a long time”. She was right when I tried to make the fuzz prints just by placing and removing a pom pom right away it didn’t work. Loved these observations.

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Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert  will leave you trying to find all sorts of things like butterflies, chickens and fish in leaf piles. The book is about a leaf man who blows away in the wind and the reader is taken past all sorts of animals like chickens and ducks, past rivers filled with fish and butterflies in the air. All are leaves pieced together to make these awesome images , some are obvious, some take concentration to see the animal among the leaves. Wonderful creative book to welcome the changing seasons.

Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber is a beautifully illustrated , informative book that all all about leaves in autumn. It’s not the most exciting book but is a good teaching resource and tool when you are teaching your child about the changing seasons.  I can’t say this is a must read, but it’s useful and worth a look at your local library and will probably make you and your children want to jump in a few giant piles of leaves!

When Autumn Falls by Kelli Nidey is a stunning book, the illustrations which are painted paper collages, by Susan Swan are so richly colored you will want more after turning the last page. The text is clever as well. Readers will discover that fall is well named not just because of falling leaves, but also pumpkins falling from the vines, temperatures falling, seeds falling from their leaves and even football players falling! The text is the perfect length for toddlers but not too short for preschoolers too.  Cute book for this time of year.