Autumn Leaf Kebabs Nature Crafts for Kids

Autumn is my favourite time of year for crafting. I love being able to use lots of natural resources for our crafts and activities. After a busy week at work and school, heading out in the Autumnal sunshine is a real tonic. The children are at lovely ages too where they love a challenge to find nature items to collect and bring back home for an activity. 

I always find it is a great reset once we are back. Coming home with a focus, calmly resetting after a good dose of fresh air. The great thing about this activity too is very little is needed to give it a go. You can get it together at a moments notice.

Kebab sticks

Leaves

Really simple this activity. Needing very little to have a go yourself. You can get a large packet of 100 kebab sticks for £1-2. Do keep in mind that one end of the kebab stick is sharper than the other. I would advise doing this activity under adult supervision. If you are concerned about the sharper end you can look at using some scissors to snip the point away. 

This will make it a little more challenging however to successfully thread your leaves on. Perhaps you could give it a go before the children and work out which way will work better for you.

Firstly you will need to head out onto a nature walk. Collect a variety of autumn leaves. make sure you collect a variety of different colours including red, orange, yellow, brown and green. 

It may be worth looking to take a lunchbox type container out with you. My children love filling their own containers. I find when they have a container each they are much more focused on the task. They fill their boxes and carry them home with pride. 

Once you're back look at emptying all of the leaves out. Get the children to order the leaves according to the colours. This is why you will need to have a good amount of each colour to make sure they really show up once you add them to the sticks. 

Take your sticks and start threading your leaves on. You can start with your reds and create a rainbow of Autumnal colours. Thread the leaves onto the sticks fading from one colour to the next. 

I found this activity generated some lovely discussion about Autumn, why leaves change colour, what colours we can expect to see during Autumn and not only was it great for language but it's also really good for fine motor skills and hand eye co-ordination. 

The children have to carefully thread the leaves on so they don't tear, they have to locate where the centre of each leaf is and apply pressure to puncture the leaf onto the stick. 

Such a fun autumn activity to do. Very simple and quick to put together. Give it a go!