Gift Guide 
What You’ll Need
- Old newspaper
- Coffee filters
- Food coloring
- Leaves
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Stick
- Yarn
1. Cover your workspace with newspaper. Place the coffee filters on the newspaper and flatten them.
Creative
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DIY Leaf Mobile
A simple craft to showcase the change of the seasons
Coffee filters (white or natural) make the perfect base for the food coloring. Once on the filter, the food coloring spreads and mixes naturally. Hang the mobile in a room or against a window, and watch as the leaves dance in the wind.
Image Credit |
Photos by Madison McClain
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2. Squeeze drops of food coloring onto the coffee filters. Let dry.
3. Collect leaves and trace them on the filters.
4. Cut out the leaf shapes. Poke a small hole in each leaf and tie yarn through the hole. Tie the other end of the yarn to the stick. Try different lengths of floss to vary the look.
5. Tie the ends of the yarn to the ends of the stick. Hang your leaf mobile!
Extend the Fun
Younger kids: Fall is full of beautiful colors. Help your child learn about the world by making connections between the colors in the leaf mobile and the colors on the trees outside. If you don’t have any trees turning color near you, do a quick online image search to find fall foliage in other locations.
Older kids: We can see that leaves change color, but why does that happen? Ask your child to think about why leaves might change color. Any observation she makes is a good one. Then together you can research how and why leaves fall off trees.
