As the leaves begin to change color and the air turns crisp, take the opportunity for some mindful seasonal crafts with your children. Making leaf animals is a great hands-on nature activity - it encourages imagination and creativity, helps develop fine motor skills and children can complete it independently. If you’re adding leaf animal craft to your fall/autumn nature activities, here are some ideas.
What you need:
- Baskets or small bags/buckets for children to collect leaves in (alternatively, collect leaves in advance)
- Craft paper or cardstock
- Glue
- Googly eyes (optional)
- Scissors
Planning the leaf animals
Children may want to use their own imagination or reference pictures from a book to choose an animal to create. Show some examples beforehand to get them thinking!
You could also use these FREE ready-to-print inspiration sheets to help children plan out their creations. They could also be used as general inspiration (rather than children directly creating what’s in the pictures). Or, children might want to recreate one of the animals. The download contains pictures to help children make a bird, hedgehog, fox, lion, turkey, or butterfly.
There’s also a blank sheet for children to plan an animal of their choice, with space to draw it before making it.
Download the leaf animals (UK)
Download the leaf animals (US)
Ask children to think about what size leaves they might need for their animal. They’ll also want to consider leaf color and shape! Will they need any extras? Sticks, twigs, pine needles, grass, or petals could also be used to create animal features. I particularly like sycamore seeds, which can be great for making long ears, tails, or even feathers.
Collecting leaves
If children are collecting leaves themselves, they’ll need something to put them in. Avoid very damp or very dry, brittle leaves. Encourage them to be considered about which leaves they choose so they don’t end up overwhelmed with piles on the table!
Alternatively, you could skip the step where children collect leaves and gather them beforehand. They could then be pressed before use.
Creating the leaf animals
Once back inside, you can then start arranging the leaves onto the cardstock. Children should put everything in place before gluing anything down.
Once dry, markers could be used to add details like stripes, spots, or scales to the leaf animals.
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