Fall Activities for Toddlers – Leaf Matching

1 year old, 2 year old, Uncategorized, , , 6 Comments
One of L’s favorite things to do outside is collect fall leaves in a little pumpkin bucket.  Unfortunately, once we get inside the leaves don’t last very long before they get dry and crumbly.  I decided to try to extend the lives of some fall leaves by laminating them — so far, it’s working!
I collected matching pairs of fall leaves and set them on the counter to dry for the afternoon.  When they were dry, I put them through the laminator and cut around each leaf to preserve its unique shape.  The colors of the leaves did fade slightly as they went through the laminating process, but since then they’ve stayed the same.  I don’t know yet if these laminated leaves will still look good by next year, but in the month that I’ve had them out they still look great!  L enjoys taking out the leaves one by one and feeling the veins and sharp edges.  In a few weeks we will try matching the pairs of leaves, but for now it works fine as a sensory basket.
 

 



6 thoughts on “Fall Activities for Toddlers – Leaf Matching”

  1. Hi! Do you have any recommendations for helping infants (6 months) work in finger and thumb grasping (to be able to grab foods)?

  2. 6 months is very young for those kind of fine motor skills to be developed. The body is also usually not yet ready to process finger foods at that age — it is very difficult for a 6 month old to chew and swallow small foods. I would recommend sticking with pureed foods until your child is closer to 8 months old.

    In the meantime, you can help your child develop her pincer grip by providing small objects in a supervised setting to prevent choking. Bead track toys (sometimes called bead rollercoasters) are great for this since the child can't possibly try to swallow the bears but must still use the pincer grip to move each bead along the wire. It's a very age-appropriate toy — L loved bead trackers when she was 6-8 months old!

Comments are closed.