Autumn Adventures for Infants & Toddlers

Ages/Grades

Infants

Toddlers

 

Ready, Set, Play & Learn:

 

Autumn Music & Movement

• Download our Autumn Song Cards for music and movement inspiration for the season. In this free download, you’ll find lyrics and movement suggestions, and well as prompts for engaging in conversation with children during and after singing together.
• Here's what's inside:
• • The Leaves Fall Down
• • Ten Little Spiders
• • Apple Tree Song
• • Five Little Pumpkins
• Download Your Free Autumn Song Cards

 

Pumpkin Process Art

• Invite children to use fingers, brushes, or texture painters to add colors to pumpkins and gourds of all sizes. Here’s the twist: keep it focused on the process by allowing children to wash the pumpkin off afterwards. Let it dry, and do it all over again! Hint: Photos and videos as documentation helps capture children’s experiences when an activity doesn’t result in individual “take home” art or crafts.

 

Nature Dough Prints

• With careful supervision, toddlers can use natural items like mini-pumpkins, acorns, leaves, pinecones and gourds to explore texture and mark making with dough.
• If children haven’t yet had a chance to explore play dough, allow your first session to be all about pushing, pulling, pressing, pinching, rolling … all of the wonders of playdough in our hands. Once children are familiar with the properties of playdough, introduce a few natural objects. Observe how children engage with the materials with the dough. You can gently model and narrate your own process of using the objects to make prints, create textures, or otherwise interact with the dough.

 

Engage Children in Conversation

• For both creative invitations, try to narrate your own actions as well as what the children are doing, for example,
• You’re making big swoops down the pumpkin with your fingers!
• I’m swirling the blue on top of the yellow paint.
• Naomi is tapping her acorn on the dough, “tap, tap, tap!” I can see a mark for each tap!
• Ask open-ended questions, such as:
• What do the ridges feel like as you move the paint across them?
• Do you think the paint will look different on this bumpy pumpkin? What about this white pumpkin?
• What will change if we add some more water?
• I wonder what we’ll notice if we roll the pinecone instead of pressing it?
• Do you think the print will be the same if we use the green pumpkin instead of the orange pumpkin?

 

Modifications

• If children are reluctant to get messy, offer tools (small rollers, craft sticks, spoons) so children can engage without direct hand contact.
• Similarly, for dough activities, provide dough inside a zippered plastic bag for pressing, poking, or drawing with fingers on the outside. Start with firm dough that feels less sticky and gradually introduce softer textures over time.
• For fine motor support, pre-roll dough “patties” to make pressing easier for children who fatigue quickly.