Tossing Leaves Collage

Our nights have been getting colder and we even a forecast for snow this week, which has got us thinking about fall. What goes better with fall than fallen leaves? ...well pine needles in our area, but we stuck with leaves for this activity.

In our supply cabinet we had a stack of people silhouettes we combined with a cutting activity. We provided blue paper for the background, a person shape, glue sticks, scissors, paper strips and chalk. We did provide an example and the older children (and parents) were great at creating a similar product.

The younger children really loved the person shapes and rather than cutting leaves, they cut clothes for the people. Younger children tore the strips into pieces instead of using scissors.

One spirited child ended up singing "Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread man" while two other children chased the "cookie" with polar bears.

We had a stack people shapes which we shared with our co-hosts Live Violence Free. They worked with our local preschool earlier in the morning, using the Care for Kids curriculum, to discuss bodies and private areas, drawing clothes on those areas on the people shapes. If you care for young children in a group setting, Care for Kids is a great, proactive curriculum to strengthen the protective factors children have against child sexual abuse.