Fall Tree

This is an easy and fun craft that you can easily customize for your curriculum.

Materials:
• yellow construction paper
• toilet paper roll
• paint: brown, red and orange
• 2 shallow bowls or dishes your child's finger can the bottom
• pencil
• scissors
• paint brush

Directions:
1. Draw the outline of a tree top and cut out

2. Paint the toilet paper roll brown

3. Put some red paint and orange paint in shallow bowls

4. Dip your child's index finger in one of the bowls. Remove your child's finger and have your child place finger prints on the tree top. Repeat with the second bowl of paint

5. When dry, cut 2 small slits in opposite sides of the toilet paper roll

6. Securely place the tree top in the slits made on the toilet paper roll. It should be able to stand upright.

You can easily accessorize the tree by adding animals (such as squirrels or owls or other animals).

You can also teach STEM topics, such as science (e.g., season changes, birds, small mammals), or mathematics (e.g., count the number of leaves, sorting colors, graphing) and much more!

Pretty Peacock Craft

One of our students' favorite books is about a proud peacock who flew away from home. The peacock in the story was vain because he was so beautiful. The children wanted to be able to act out the story, and asked us to make a beautiful peacock. In response, we came up with this easy craft.

Materials:

• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Markers 
• Glitter

Directions: 

1. On a piece of construction paper (we used teal) draw the the head (with feathers on top), the body and the wings of the peacock. Use a marker to draw in the feathers on the wings. 

2. On another piece of construction paper (yellow), draw the beak, eyes and feet. Fill in the eyes with a marker. 

3. On another piece of construction paper (we used purple), draw six ovals. This will be the tail feathers. Use another construction paper (we used green) and cut out small ovals to glue to the feathers. 

4. Glue the eyes and beak to the peacock's face. Glue the feet to the bottom of the body. Arrange the tail feathers around the body and glue. 

5. Add glitter to the tail feathers and around the neck. 

Paper Stained Glass Window

A craft that adds color to the room! This craft can be difficult for young children; gauge your child's strengths before starting.

Materials:
• black construction paper
• crepe paper
• scissors
• pencil
• glue
• stencils (optional)
• duct tape

Directions:

Before you begin, plan what you want to put in the windows. When making your plan, it is important that you leave at least 1/2 inch between images. When working with young children, it is recommended to leave 1 inch between images to help the child with cutting and gluing.

1. In a piece of construction paper, draw or trace the images you want in your stained glass window. Leave at least 1/2 inch margin around all images and the border of the paper

2. Cut out the images. This can be difficult for young children. We found that after making the initial cut and cutting out the center of the image. Preschoolers can cut the rest of the images out

3. Cut out crepe paper to fit in each cut out image. There are several important things to remember. This will be hanging on your window, so try to keep the back side as clean as possible. For pastel or light crepe papers, you may need to glue 3-5 layers of crepe paper for the color to show

4. Once dry, hang on a window with masking tape.