Keeping Little Hands Busy: Cheap and Easy Fall Crafts For Kids

It won’t be long before the weather starts to turn crisp and we are spending more time inside with our children climbing the walls errrrr I mean, playing indoors. More indoor time in my house means that I have to put a little extra time into planning activities to keep little hands busy! Small art projects are not only great for many areas of development, but they also keep my boys from ripping apart the house and hurting each other…HA! Here are a few of our favorite fall craft projects that are SUPER cheap and easy!

Bottle Brush Painted Tree

Items needed:

• Bottle brush or brush of your choice
• Brown, red, orange colored paint
• Paper with a tree trunk and limbs drawn/painted on it

To prep this activity, I drew a tree trunk and limbs with oil pastels and then gave it to my son to decorate. He dipped the bottle brush into the different colors and then lightly tapped it onto the paper. The brush makes for a very unique design and it’s fun to explore new objects.

Fall Wreath

Items needed:

• Paper plate with center cut out
• Glue
• Real or fake leaves (Dollar Tree and Walmart have great fake leaves that would be great!)

To prep this activity I cut the center out of the plates and then called the kids to the table. I gave them each glue and then they placed the glued leaves on the plate. Both by five year old and two year old love this activity. You can take this activity up a notch by working on color sorting, talking about the differences in the leaves or making patterns.

Pumpkin Apple Stamping

Items needed:

• Apple, cut in half
• Paint color of choice (we did orange)
• Paper
• Marker to draw stem

We started by cutting an apple in half and then dipping it gently into orange paint. Once the apple’s bottom is fully coated in paint, instruct the child to stamp it onto their paper. EASY! Once dry, you or the child can decorate the stamped pumpkin with stems or even get really creative with a jack-o-lantern face!

All of the above crafts were done with items that I had around the house and were cheap! I love having things on hand that I can put together quickly when little people start showing me that they need some sensory/activity time.

What are your favorite fall crafts?