One of the ways that we get ready for a party is to decorate! Yes, there are lots of things that we can buy to decorate, but often the most special thing is something that children have made. Plus, it’s beautiful and a way to match your celebration to the season. In fact, many holiday traditions are based on what is available seasonally.
Here, we invite children to string along leaves or other found materials to make a beautiful leaf garland. If you are decorating for a party in a part of the world or time of year without leaves, you can use flower petals, dry citrus, and other natural materials. These garlands might not last long, but the intention is to enjoy the process of exploration and making garlands!
Set up Time: 5 minutes
Directions
- Go outside and collect leaves with children. Dry them off if necessary.
- Thread your twine into your needles or the round end of the bobby pin.
- Invite the children to practice threading through leaves. If they mess up, there are plenty more leaves to work with!
- Hang your garland somewhere that the children can see, ideally at their eye level.
Materials
- Leaves collected from nature
- Jumbo sewing needles or bobby pins
- Twine
Tip: We highly recommend getting child-friendly jumbo sewing needles. However, in case you don’t have large sewing needles on hand, the special trick is to use bobby pins!
Learning Through Play
Cognitive: Connections – Talk to children about the other things that we do to decorate for a party, which can always change depending on the holiday. Can children identify some colors associated with some holidays? They might have seen decorations for an upcoming holiday in their local grocery store or pharmacy. Do they have neighbors who get excited to decorate for specific holidays? Where do they store the decorations when they aren’t using them?
Physical: Fine Motor – Stringing decorations is a great way for children to work on their fine motor skills. And when we use natural materials, that gives us some wiggle room to make mistakes—there’s always an abundance of leaves for us to find and try again!
School Readiness: Pattern Recognition – Making garlands is a great way to work on patterns with children. There is no right or wrong way to make a garland. You can arrange the leaves in a gradation pattern as you place them along a spectrum of changing colors (if doing this in the autumn!) Or you can make alternating patterns with the colors (red-yellow-red-yellow).
See this activity in the Rayz Kidz app, along with the other fun pretend play activities. Rayz Kidz is your trusted source for play-based activities featuring over 100 themes and 500+ hands-on activities and clear descriptions of the beautiful learning that is happening through play.
